Wayward Son: The Claptrap Story
by thewhitepatch
Summary: Headshots, Sirens, Badasses, and that confusing little thing called common sense- One and a half years after the events of Borderlands II, Claptrap's been forcibly given the chance to make people care about him. But things go wrong, as usual...(Human!fic)
1. Wake Up, Shot Down

_I'll explain later, but this is another one of my "Things that should already exist but don't" series of fics._

_I do not own Borderlands._

* * *

It was no secret that the bandits on Pandora were insane.

They have seen random people do the dumbest, most insane things on a daily basis. Between seeing midgets gladly barbeque themselves up in the name of false gods and seeing some men literally fall in love with their weapons, nothing really surprised the bandits anymore.

But the bandits of Southern Shelf were all completely dumbfounded when some random guy, walked into their base one day.

Normally, by the time a guy like him got that close to the base, he would have more bullets in him then an ammo vending machine. The bandits of the Southern Shelf were especially paranoid about strangers in their bases since the Vault Hunters raided their base and killed Captain Flynt about one and a half years ago.

But there was something completely different about this guy that completely dumbfounded the psychopaths of the base.

The guy himself could have been considered a little off. He wore orange vest with white stripe across the waste. Underneath that, he had a long-sleeved black shirt and a verity of straps and bandages around his waste. He had a dirty blond mohawk, light blue eyes, and a stupid grin on his face. He walked like somebody riding a bike for the first time, glancing down at his feet occasionally, and wobbling every few steps. It was possible he was drunk out of his mind.

But that was not the strangest part about him.

The strangest part about him was that he walked into a bandit camp completely unarmed, without a shield or anything.

By Pandora's standards, this was nothing short of suicide.

However, much like a train wreck, the bandits could not find it in themselves to do anything about it except look. They just sat back, staring as the guy walked into the middle of the camp before opening his stupid mouth to speak.

"Hello, illusions!" he stated with enthusiasm, in a high pitch voice that made some of the bandits cringe. "Please bring out your designated leader so I can end this nightmare already!"

The bandits stared for another second before, surprisingly, doing what the man asked.

Admiral Koal, the younger brother of Captain Flynt, proceed down from his base of operations to confront the strange man. Koal looked pretty much exactly like his brother but was slightly smaller. He went right up to the to the guy and glared down at him.

"Who the hell are ya, and why do ya can saunter in here like ya own the place?!" he shouted.

The man took a second to whip the saliva off his face before answering.

"Well, you see, this is a nightmare, and I want to wake up!" The man answered, his stupid grin returning

Koal stared for a second. "...What?"

"Yeah!" The man replied excitedly. "It's all kinda blurry. I must of fallen asleep, cause I was in Sanctuary before I was here, and there's no way I coulda made that entire trip. Unless I fast traveled," the man stroked his chin thoughtfully, "but I'm not registered! At least I don't think I am. Do you-"

"SHUT UP!" Koal shouted, shoving his shotgun against the man's head. "Ya don't seem like the bandit type, so what threads have ya gots here?"

The man thought for a few seconds, trying to understand what Koal meant by "threads." Realizing Koal meant "connections," the man snapped his fingers.

"Oh,yeah!" the man looked up, "You brother owned me!"

"...What?"

"Yeah! He would torture me, and torment me! Really anything that would feel horrible he did to me!" the man replied, far too excitably.

"Oh, yeah," Koal said, "That's exactly like my bro. Rest his soul."

They stood there in an awkward silence, before the man coughed. "So, anyway, as I was saying, I need you to shoot me in the face!"

Face McShooty would be proud.

"...Why would I do that?" Koal leered at the strange man. After a confused pause, Koal rephrased his question. "Why would I do that after you asked me to? I don't take no orders from some punk-ass pretty boy like you!"

"Well," the annoying man replied, "I was sorta kinda riding on the fact that you would want to avenge your brother, since I did kill him and all."

Koal paused and looked the man over. "You don't look like any of them Vault Vault Hunters, and it was them Vault Hunter's that killed my brother."

"But the Vault Hunters are MY minions! So, by some sort of proxy, I, in a way, killed your brother!"

"What"

"I'm Claptrap!"

Koal looked at the man, who claimed to be Claptrap, before throwing his head back, laughing. The rest of the bandits around the camp began laughing with him. After a few seconds, Claptrap joined in with the laughter, not understanding that they were laughing at him.

Koal finally managed to calm himself down. "Oh, Oh, I can see why ye wanna die, kid, thinking you're that moron! Alright!" Koal pushed Claptrap down to his knees, as he loaded his shotgun. "I'll do ye a solid: I won't force ye to go through the rest of yar life, thinking yarself to be some dumbass AI, and ye promise to blow yar head up nice and good! The boys could use some good entertainment since we got kicked out of the Underdome!"

Claptrap beamed up at Koal. "Thanks, illusion! Out of all of my imaginary friends, you are my third favorite!"

As Koal put the barrel to his head, it occurred to Claptrap that he didn't have dreams.

Meaning all of this was real.

"WAIT-"

_**BOOM!**_

**Thewhitespot Presents:**

_**WAYWARD SON: The Claptrap Story**_

* * *

_So I noticed that there are no Borderlands fanfics that play with the idea of Claptrap being a human in the same way that Portal Fanfics deal with those AI's becoming human. That probably has to with those robots being better developed as characters, but I thought it would be interesting to write a fic revolving around Claptrap._

_Speaking of Portal Fics, this fic takes a lot of inspiration from wafflestories 's Blue Sky Portal fic, which is amazing and you should read that now instead of this crap. _

_Are you back? Good. I'm not going to openly follow the fic, beat by beat, but I might make an allusion to it, as I have with the title, which is the theme song to this fic, much like "Mr. Blue Sky" is for Blue Sky. Also, the summery is an allusion to the the summery of Blue Sky._

_Remember, this is baby's first multichapter fic, so it might not update often, and it might not be great. I do think that the plot line I cooked up is pretty interesting, but I can't say anything about the dialog not being shit._

_Please Read and Review, and, if you feel like it, it would really help if you left constructive criticism, preferably something that does not reference the time you had with my mother last night._

_Have Fun :D_

_P.S.: The human Claptrap design is based off of a pic by Niscaner on Devientart. I admit that i did not really get their permission about using it, but i loved it so much that I'm going to try to make up for it by plugging them whenever i can. Check out their gallery!_


	2. In-Body Experences

_Alright, here is the next chapter of Wayward Son! I've decided to post these up by scene, which is why some of the chapters are going to be short, like this one. I'll put more scenes per chapter when something climatic is happening. I just started finals, so i wanted to give this to you guys before i get sunk deep into it._

_I don't own Borderlands._

* * *

Claptrap woke up.

It didn't occur to him right away why this might be strange.

"Aw, man! I'm still human!" he moaned, pushing himself back onto his feet. "Now I gotta deal with all those stupid human things like eating, sleeping, not getting shot."

"Although, on the plus side, I have a dick! Now I can be disappointed when I'm unable to talk a girl up."

"And maybe...I CAN WALK UP STAIRS! SUCK IT WHEELS!"

"Wait, shouldn't I be dead? Oh well. I assume I'm bulletproof!"

"Humans don't tend to talk to themselves out loud like this. I think they have something like an 'internal monologue' or something. I should start one of those. My throat is starting to hurt."

He began to think hard about a few random things in order to get the thought ball rolling.

_Guns. Badass. Boobies. Wub-wub. _

Claptrap successfully started an internal monologue. He'll still probably say stupid things, but now he has the ability to not have to describe his surroundings. Speaking of his surroundings, Claptrap decided to take a look at his.

It looked like a bomb had went off in the bandit camp, which was a possibility because Pandora.

Body parts and rubble surrounded the camp. Blood painted the ground. The blood and body parts of the bandits previously occupying the camp were mixed with the preexisting dismembered limbs.

Claptrap noticed that Koal's shotgun was abandoned on the ground next to him, next to the bandit's dismembered arm. He picked it up. He recognized it as the shotgun he would have given the Vault Hunters if they had given him the Bullymong fur for his mohawk way back when they first arrived on Pandora. Instead, they opted to give the fur to Hammerlock so he could make a hat.

_Joke's on them, _Claptrap thought, _I got my mohawk now!_

He picked up the shotgun. It felt good in his hands, although, given how long he had the hands, he probably wasn't the best judge for this. He gave it a test fire. The blast that emulated from the gun seemed to have an explosive, fire-like quality. Needless to say, it would do some damage.

He didn't quite remember the gun to have these perks when he originally had it, but it was possible that Koal modified the gun to be stronger then before.

Claptrap decided to investigate what happened around the came. The dead bandits had dropped some Insta-Health Vials along with money, as they usually do. Claptrap picked up as much of the money as he could, knowing that he could at least use it to buy some strippers or booze or candy. The world gave him a body, it was now his job to slowly poison it.

He saw the decapitated head of one of the bandits. Next to it was an Insta-Health Vial. Curiosity got the better of him.

He took the Insta-Health Vial and stuck it into the decapitated head.

The head began to scream. Claptrap dropped it in surprise and screamed along with it. He fumbled with his new shotgun as the head continued to scream. He fired a few stray shots at the head before finally hitting it and destroying it.

Claptrap wiped the sweat from his forehead.

_Good thing Hyperion programmed me to be able to feel fear. Otherwise that would have been pretty scary. _Claptrap thought. _Although I could do without my heart pounding in my ears. Alright, enough with the investigating. If anyone asks, I beat them all with my bare hands! Yeah! Ladies dig bare-handed beaters! _

_Also, I have a heart! Cool!  
_

_The next thing I should focus on is getting up to Sanctuary. If only I knew someone who was down in the Shelf..._

Claptrap thought about it for a few seconds before exclaiming "HAMMERLOCK! He's always coming down here to pick up his old stuff. He might still be down here!"

Claptrap put the shotgun on his back before proceeding to Hammerlock's hideout.

* * *

_This Chapter was more about proving Claptrap was, well, Claptrap. I think the last chapter didn't do that well of a job in that regard._

_R&R_


	3. Old Friend

_As I promised, i published the chapter right after i wrote it. I had a free period and nothing to do. Asside from study fro my physics final. So here it is._

_I do not own Borderlands_

* * *

During the war with Hyperion, the Crimson Raiders found a set of encrypted ECHO logs that were buried deep in a captured Hyperion storage unit. Due to how heavily corrupted and encrypted the logs were, the Raiders did not put a lot of effort into recovering them. Now that the war was over, the Raiders decided to look into the logs, given how much free time and resources they had.

The logs were left in the Southern Shelf Outpost, Liar's Berg, after they had to abandon it. Since Claptrap did not know the area that well, they decided to send the person who had lived there for a while, Sir Hammerlock.

The tapes were pretty easy to find, so Hammerlock decided to take the extra time to reminisce about the good times he'd had on the Shelf.

_I'm going to miss this old place. _He thought. _The constant fear, the bullymogs, the nights that were so cold I would wake up thinking I was dead or with my tongue stuck to my robotic arm._

Hammerlock grimaced at the memories. He spat on the ground. _I hope this place burns. The worst part, that absolute bloody worst part, was having to live near Claptrap by myself. I would take an eternity of slowly peeling my tongue off of my arm over another night alone with him. I can still hear his awful annoying voice now..._

"HAMMERLOCK!"

_Wait a tad, that's not in my head!_

"Claptrap! What are you-" He saw Claptrap's new appearance "Bloody hell?!"

"I woke up like this! Pretty awesome, am I right?"

Hammerlock felt his faith in humanity wither inside of him upon the newest arrival to the human race.

He stood there in stunned silence as Claptrap rambled on. "Can you believe my luck? I though I was going to be stranded down here in this frozen hellhole! And in a body that can probably feel cold, no less! I don't have any fast travel registration on this body, so I figured I was screwed! Who would have guessed that I knew someone who was visiting down here, and he happened to be one of my best, as you would say, 'chaps' ever?"

Hammerlock regained his composure, then sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Even though I am rather certain I will be put to death for not killing you on sight, the fact that you exist in such a form is such a scientific marvel that I feel bound to discover the origins of your creation."

Claptrap processed this complex sentence with a stupid grin on his face. "Scientific marvel!" he exclaimed. "That's what the ladies will call me!"

Hammerlock disregarded his declaration. "We may as well head over to the fast travel unit. Would you do me a favor and pick up that box of Echo logs for me?" Hammerlock and Claptrap made their way to the fast travel unit. Hammerlock stopped in front of it.

"I'm going to message ahead that I found the tapes." he told Claptrap. "As well as give the others a little bit of forewarning." he said to himself.

~_hiss~_

**Hammerlock:**_I have the echo logs and am on my way back to Sanctuary now. I advise you put your guns on safety in preparation of my return._

**Axton: **_Uh, alright then. Why's that?_

**Hammerlock: **_You'll see._

_~hiss~_

While Hammerlock was doing this, Claptrap noticed that the Echo logs had some sort of code lock on them. Since he fancied himself a bit of a professional lock expert, despite all evidence to the contrary, he looked at it, and put in the first numbers that came to his mind.

The lighting on the devices changed from red to yellow. Claptrap tried to play the logs, but they would not play.

_If you were a door, I'd have opened the crap out of you._

Hammerlock called over Claptrap. "Alright, I payed the passenger fee. You can repay me once you've obtained funds of your own."

Claptrap excitedly grasped into his pocket and pulled out a handful of money. "Will this cover it?"

"How-how did you make this much already?"

"Oh, these bandits were harassing me, so I killed them." Claptrap would usually have told Hammerlock his totally-believable, made-up story about beating the bandits with his bare hands, but he was feeling pretty badass, having shown a disbelieving Hammerlock a crap-ton of cash. He decided to be vague. If anyone asked later, he would tell them the story.

Hammerlock assumed he killed them with the shotgun on his back. "Oh, how convent. You already know how to use a gun. It would have been rather troublesome to have to train you.

Claptrap also decided not to tell him he had no idea how to do normal things with a gun, like aim or reload.

"We better set of then."

"Cheerio!"

_I could have at least gagged him. He has a mouth now._

* * *

_I've been watching the new season of Arrested Development, so it kinda effected the way i wrote this chapter._

_Speaking of Arrested Development, if you see "Dee dee do, dee dee dee do" in this fic, assume it's the dramatic music that plays during the Oscar/Buster moments. You can already tell what the plot line for that part is, but its not really anything dramatic so much as it is comedic._


	4. Touching Base

_Sorry for how long it took to update. If you were really torn up about it, I'm flattered, but you might want to reexamine your priorities. I was pretty burned out from all the testing I had to do and, as you can tell by the length of this chapter, it was a long one and somewhat hard to write. It's mainly exposition, but I tried my best to make it fun. More on that later._

_Don't own Borderlands._

* * *

After Roland was killed, Lilith became the leader of the Crimson Raiders. At that point, the only goal of the Raiders was to kill Handsome Jack, preferably in a painful manner. Roland had gotten the ball rolling before he died, so it was a simple matter that didn't really need any effort aside from the Vault Hunters doing stuff. That was convenient, seeing as Lilith was kidnapped by Jack not even five minutes after he killed Roland. So she didn't really even have that under her belt.

Lilith officially became the leader of the Raiders after Jack's death. It was at that point where Lilith realized she had absolutely no idea how to lead the Raiders. Out of the original four Vault Hunters, Roland was the only one with any real leadership skills. Mordecai tended to avoid responsibility. An argument could be made for Brick, but everybody agreed that it would be for the best if the Raiders were not lead in the same way as the Slabs.

Lilith was seen as the most reasonable of the remaining original Vault Hunters, but she would be the first to admit that her leadership skills were not up to par with Roland's. Most people assumed that this would be OK, considering the restoration of post-Hyperion Pandora lead and enforced itself. There were, however, other things that needed to be taken care of.

Mainly, the Vault Map shown by the Vault Key.

Lilith decided that the best thing to do was to divide leadership of the Crimson Raiders between people she felt could be trusted with the leadership. Mordy and Brick were already not particular interested, so she turned her sights to the new generation of Vault Hunters.

It had become a bit of an unspoken tradition that, after a group of Vault Hunters find a Vault on Pandora, they are no longer Vault Hunters. They have already hunted a Vault, and would not expect lightning to strike twice. This generation was lucky enough to find two, but didn't really count the Torque one, since that one was not generally hard to find. So the new five Vault Hunters had retired from their Vault Hunting duties.

Lilith decided to split the leadership of the Crimson Raiders with Axton, since he had war experience similar to Roland, and Maya, since she was one of the most levelheaded people on Pandora, almost matching Roland's levelheadedness. She figured that, together, they could be a leading body almost as good as Roland.

Since the Vault Map showed that there were hundreds, if not thousands, of Vaults scattered around the galaxy, the leaders of the Crimson Raiders decided to get in contact with the governing bodies of the different worlds. They set up a summit on a random planet in order to figure out what to do about them. The rest of the galaxy was now well aware of what happened on Pandora, and Maya, who was the Raider's representative, was worried that they would not listen to what the assumed were a bunch of bandits.

Lucky for her, it turned out that just about everybody hated Jack and didn't trust a word of his propaganda.

The summit went very well. Maya presented some of Patrica Tannis' research on the Vaults, editing out any nonsense or insane dribble. The summit recognized that something had to be done about the Vaults. It could already be assumed at this point that pretty much all the Vaults held dangerous monsters from other dimensions, not the treasure that people assumed would be there. If a Vault were to be opened without anyone around to kill the beast, there was no telling what kind of damage it would do. Even worse, Tannis's research revealed that, due to Jack's supercharging of the Vault Key, the Vaults would all open on their own at some point.

What ultimately came out of the summit was the Vault Containment Effort. The VCE would find a Vault, completely contain the area, gather as much information about whatever creature is inside of the Vault as possible, open the Vault, and kill the creature. It was an organized effort among many governments in the galaxy and was composed of soldiers who were trained off of a special program based off of the previous encounters with Vault Creatures. The program was beginning to grow into a galactic alliance, having different programs sprouting out of it revolving around non-Vault related issues, such as trade or travel.

The main slogan of the program was "Shoot the obvious weak point!" As simple as it sounded, it worked like a charm. They even made shirts.

It was a job full of risks, and one would have to be insane to do it full-time without pay.

Which is what Brick did, for the record.

On this specific day, the VCE is acting as a conduit between the Pandora based Crimson Raiders and the rest of the galaxy. Since the ransom of Handsome Jack was one of the talking points, all the new generation Vault Hunters, Gaige, Zero, Salvador, Maya, and Axton, as well as Lilith, were present. The conduit was a former Dahl commando turned head of the Vault Issues department of the VCE.

The conduit walked into the Raider's HQ with one female soldier with short black hair by her side. The conduit was a women with shoulder length red hair and hardened brown eyes. When she spoke, it was as if she careful chose every word she said. It wasn't because she was nervous, but rather she seemed to not want to put herself or the people she represented in any position she didn't need to be in.

"Hello, Vault Hunters." she opened. She glanced over at Axton. "Axton."

I trust you guys have already figured out at this point that she's also Axton's ex, so lets not beat around the bush.

Axton smirked at her. "I've seen you naked before, Sarah, so just know I'll be thinking about that throughout this entire thing."

Sarah paused for a second, looked at Axton, then walked to the center of the room. "Our first order of business shall be the ransom of Handsome Jack. Many of the VCE related governments have donated to a pool to reward the killers of Handsome Jack as well as the Crimson Raiders for their efforts of informing the galaxy of the growing Vault crisis. We have already given the payment to the head of the Raiders to be distributed into their funds, so this is about the bounty on Jack."

Sarah produced four different checks from her pocket. The check each had the same very impressive number on them. She then gave one to Gaige and Maya, who both had the same impressed look at the check. She gave one to Salvador, who looked at the check before saying, "You know, senoria, I would have killed Jack for nothing but the sensation of seeing his terrified face as it fell off of the rest of his body."

"I understand that, and you would not be the first to say that, but, for legal reasons, you must take the money." she said, undisturbed by the native Pandorian gruesome description.

Salvador laughed from the gut. "Never said I wasn't going to take the dinero!"

She got to Axton, who still had the same smirk on his face as he took the check from her hand. Sarah, with a completely straight face, using the hand that was holding the check, took her thumb and index finger and emphasized the not so generous gap between them. "About this long." she said, before returning to the center of the room.

Gaige and the short-black haired soldier snorted giggles at Axton's cost. Axton dropped the smirk on his face. "Well played." he admitted.

"Now, it there is hypothetically a fifth party who you think deserves a share of the total payment, but would prefer not to gain any attention for it, you each take a fifth of your payment and give it to the said party."

"...She does know that we talked to Zero about this beforehand, right?" Gaige whispered to Maya.

"I think she might be recording the conversation. Trying to keep it as professional as possible."

"Then why would she make the dick joke?"

"Because Axton was being an ass."

Zero had informed the other Raiders before the meeting that he would prefer to stay out of the system, due to his "political assassin" side job. Since they were pretty sure the conversation was being recorded, Zero stood in the corner of the room and remained silent throughout the entire meeting.

"You are all heros, and have earned ever dime of whats been given to you." Sarah said to the group. "That said, most of you are horrible criminals, and probably deserve to be imprisoned or on death row."

The only one of the Vault Hunters who looked offended by this statement was Gaige, although her only reaction was a downward glance.

"Luckily, we found a workaround. From now on, Pandora is a no-man's planet. That means that convicts and criminals can be sent here to live out their sentences. If there are any criminals that are already here, they cannot leave the planet."

"So who can and can't leave the planet? Specific people, I mean. You already explained the guidelines. Who in this room?" Maya asked.

"Actually, the only two people in this room who are not allowed to leave the planet due to crimes are Axton and Gaige, due to their off-world crimes. Although, if any native Pandorians wish to leave, they will have to be deemed as a non-threat to the rest of the galaxy, so I highly doubt that Salvador will be able to leave."

"Eh, other planets are overrated. I didn't want to leave anyway." Salvador commented.

"Wait, why's Maya allowed to leave? She killed her cult." Gaige asked,

"Religious government." Maya corrected.

"You say tomato, I say oppressive religious dictatorship."

"It all really depends on what the laws you broke are. Even though you did kill those priests, your home world harbors no ill will toward you. In fact, they wanted us to give you payment for saving them from oppression." Sarah handed Maya a sealed envelope.

Maya examined the envelope, then handed it back to Sarah. "They suffered enough. Tell them to keep their money."

Sarah did not take the envelope."I anticipated you would say that, and told them that. They were so grateful that they decided to throw a festival in your honor. That's an invitation for you to be their guest of honor."

Maya opened the invitation and examined it. "Doesn't look like anything culty, but I would prefer to avoid the attention."

"Least your cult has parties." Lilith said, deciding to contribute to the conversation. "All mine did was burn people, which isn't really fun when you're not doing the burning."

"You kinda lead yourself into that one, 'Fire Hawk.'"

"The Crimson Raiders will now also act as the Pandora-stationed wing of the VCE." Sarah said, putting the conversation back on track. "As shown by the Vault Map, there are more Vaults on Pandora then there are on any other planet. The VCE will focus on the off-world Vaults while the Raiders will focus on the Pandora ones. If you should need any backup, contact the VCE and we will send forces down to help." With that statement, Sarah tapped a few buttons on her wrist control pad, signifying an end to the meeting.

Gaige approached Sarah after the meeting was adjured "So I was wondering what happened to my parents." Gaige had contact with the outside world, given that she never really stopped uploading to her ECHO-cast, which was one of the most popular ones in the galaxy. However, it seemed that her parents had disappeared from the grid. Given how much power Marcy's dad had, she was fearful for the worst.

Sarah put a hand on Gaige's shoulder. "You do not need to worry about your parents. They were put into witness protection to testify at your trial. There have been a few delays for your trial, but things are actually looking to be on your side. Not only have you received so much popular notoriety over the past year, but people have begun to speak out about the corruption caused by the father of the girl you accidentally killed. The only thing keeping you and your parents in danger is that man and his persistence in pressing more corrupt charges. He will do everything in his power to avoid paying damages and receiving punishment. However," Sarah dropped her voice, "the rest of his estate is willing to reach a compromise. The only way it can be reached is if the father no longer has a say."

"What do you mean?" Gaige asked, having dropped her voice to match Sarah's.

"The man must receive punishment in some form or another. If you by any chance knew someone who could show him a more...absolute silence," Sarah visible nudged over to Zero, "then you might be able to secure a lower punishment on yourself and freedom for your parents. Perhaps someone who can technically leave the planet due to not being part of the system."

Gaige, smart girl that she is, took a second to gather the not-so-vague hinting presented before her, before smiling. She walked over to Zero and asked, "How much do I have to pay you to off Marcy's dad? You'll have to go off-world for a while, but I'm sure you can handle it."

Zero turned to face Gaige and said, "You received payment/For when you killed Handsome Jack./ One-Fifth for the job."

Gaige smiled a large smile to the assassin and, much to his surprise, hugged him.

"Thank you so much!"

"I do not think that/ Anybody has ever / Hugged me for my job."

"...That was a crappy haiku."

Axton, meanwhile, received a transmission on his ECHO device.

~_hiss~_

**Hammerlock: **_I have the echo logs and am on my way back to Sanctuary now. I advise you put your guns on safety in preparation of my return._

**Axton: **_Uh, alright then. Why's that?_

**Hammerlock: **_You'll see._

_~hiss~_

Axton shrugged and addressed the group. "Ok, Vaults are bad, friends are good, yada yada yada, Shots at Moxxi's!"

The group seemed to agree with this statement and began to leave, but the short-black haired soldier suddenly said something that stopped the entire group in their tracks.

"Wait, weren't there six of you?"

Sarah glared at the soldier. "Misty..."

"Oh, I-I mean five."

Sarah face-palmed, before turning to the Vault Hunters. "I too am actually curious about the FIFTH member of your group. What was his name again?"

"Krieg."

"What happened to him?"

Maya looked down, sighed, and began to explain. "In order to understand what happened, you have to understand who Krieg was. When I met him, I was about to get on the Hyperion train that blew up with us in it. Krieg wandered over to me and proved he wasn't completely insane, which was a big deal, considering he was a Psycho. Turned out he was a Vault Hunter, like all of us. So we accepted him into our group."

"It was pretty cool!" Gaige said, with a smile on her face. "He was hysterical! I got us all shirts that said 'Nipple Salad' on them!"

"Anyway, over our travels, we managed to decode a little of Krieg's crazy ramblings and discovered what we believed to be a small part of his mind that was somewhat sane. This sane part of his mind was steering his crazy side to not murder innocent people, or else he would kill them both."

"Imagine what that must be like. Being stuck inside of a body with no control over your actions. Loco." Salvador added.

"He had great control...I'm sorry." Maya said, after stopping for a few seconds. "It's kinda a hard story to tell."

"Take your time." Misty said. "We're in no rush."

"Actually-" Sarah started, earning a glare from her lieutenant. Axton, however, cut her off.

"I'll take this next bit. Maya has something hard to say at the end. So one day, Krieg was walking down the street of Sanctuary when some guy nudged into him. He proceeded to break the guy's neck, killing him on the spot. Maya and I were with him at the time, and we were both pretty horrified. Krieg was usually on his best behavior around Maya, so this was a surprise. He stood there, completely still, for what seemed like an eternity. I guess he was in conflict within his head. I tried to touch his arm, but then he sent me flying into a building, knocking me out. Maya?" Axton gestured over to the Siren.

Maya seemed to gain her composure, and stood tall. "He turned to me, and, with the most sorrowful look I've ever seen in his eye, said the first coherent sentence I've ever heard him say."

"'_I'm sorry'_ he said. "_Please kill me." _Maya paused for a few seconds, before concluding with, "_'I love you.'"_

There was a somber silence in the room. Gaige wiped her eyes with her sleeve and sniffled, Salvador muttered a few words in Spanish, words that were probably not so appropriate, and Zero's mask had a :( emoticon on it. Sarah remained stonefaced throughout the story, although Misty was not having as much luck, matching Gaige. Lilith, deciding to relive the two storytellers of the task of recounting the loss of a good friend, took up the reigns of concluding the story.

"He then proceeded to throw himself off of the town. We all know that the fall didn't kill him, so it seemed to be more of a last-ditch effort to avoid hurting people. When we last heard, Krieg was hiding out in a Hyperion ship that crashed over Terramorphous Peak. Right now, one of our main priorities is to raid the ship and kill him."

"That doesn't seem relevant to the main mission." Sarah commented.

Lilith glared at her. "He wanted to be put out of his misery. We owe him that much."

Sarah processed this information, then nodded in understanding. "Very well. You have some domestic issues to deal with, and that's not in the VCE's territory."

The room was filled with a tense silence, before a door was heard opening on the ground floor.

"Don't worry everyone! I'm back!"

"Claptrap! Keep it down! There's a meeting!"

"Really? How would you know?"

"The giant VCE ship floating next to the city didn't tip you off?"

"Oh, that's what that was?"

"Oh, God." Maya muttered. "Hammerlock found Claptrap."

"Am I the only one who thinks he sounds a little different?' Gaige asked.

"Sounds louder." Salvador said. "Were it possible."

"We might as well go check it out." Lilith said. "We sent Hammerlock to pick up some Hyperion info, so this seems like a good place to adjourn the meeting. Motion, seconded and all that crap."

As the group began to descend downstairs, Sarah pulled Axton aside to speak to him. "All kidding aside, you're doing better down here then we could have hoped." She patted his shoulder. "Keep doing what you're doing and don't get yourself killed."

Axton genuinely smiled before expanding his smile to a grin. "Get myself killed? And miss out on the angry ex sex? Never!"

Sarah sighed. "This is exactly why we-"

"What the hell?!"

"Cool!"

"Oh my God!"

There was a ruckus on the bottom floor after the outbursts of some of the Vault Hunters. The two former Dalh commandos descended the stairs to see what the source of the outburst was. They were not completely ready for what they saw when they got there.

There was a young man neither of them recognized talking with Zero, or at least trying to. He was rambling on about something that they could not hear over some of the other noise, but Axton could have sworn he heard the phrase, "Teach me your ninja power abilities! I can use them to get babes!" Zero was completely unreadable, although that wasn't saying much, given how silent the assassin was. It was interesting that he was showing no annoyed emoticons, suggesting he was in deep thought about something, or at least drowning the man out. Maya was being held back from drawing her weapon by Salvador and Hammerlock, who was shouting something about a "Scientific Marvel." Misty, Lilith and Gaige were watching the commotion.

Misty leaned into Gaige and whispered, "Isn't she supposed to be the reasonable one?"

"Reasonable compared to everyone else on Pandora."

The man in the center noticed that Axton entered the room, and turned to him, beaming the stupidest smile Axton had seen in his life. "Hello, final minion! Now that everyone's here, we can get to work on actual minioning! You can be my bodyguard, and you can be my mechanic, although I won't need one, since I'm not a robot anymore, and you can be a member of my harem, and you can carry me around, and you can be my cool, mysterious BFF! Works out for everyone!"

"...Claptrap?"

"Yup!"

"But your..."

"Handsome? I know! Just ask Maya!" Claptrap said, winking Maya.

The Gunzerker did not stop his Siren teammate from landing a few punches on Claptrap.

* * *

_I had to introduce a lot of characters in a short amount of time. The OCs will become more developed later in the story, I just needed a spot to introduce them._

_My appoligies to Archangel of Dragons on how I'm kinda writing Zero out of the story.__I was planning on doing it before I got your kind review, so I felt bad about it. I added the bit about Claptrap trying to make Zero his best friend at the end to make up for it. He'll come back later in the story though. Just keep in mind he's killing off Marcy's asshole dad._

_The Krieg video came out while I was working on this, so I decided to improvise. It actually changes my story a little for the better so that's good. I know that a lot of people are going to write fics about how Krieg overcomes his insanity and lives happily ever after with Maya and stuff, so I decided to write how the story could end sadly. Borderlands is a combination of tragedy and comedy, so I'm gonna try to match that. Given how I've written the story so far, I'm about as interested as you are to see how this turns out._

_So the next chapter of this story is kinda going to be a prequel oneshot. I think I might actually publish it as a standalone oneshot as well as the next chapter of this fic, given how it can stand on it's own independently. I will probably do the same thing with a oneshot later in the story, but that idea is so hysterical that I kinda need to. _

_It involves Mr. Torgue singing music from RENT. So yeah._

_I'm also writing two different oneshots that I just wanna bang out, so I'll probably do those two before I do this one. So it might be a bit more of a wait, so keep an eye on my profile for those two._

_R&R, folks._


	5. Tiny TIny Adopts a Parent

_So this chapter is a prequel to this story. It takes place after Krieg's freakout but before Claptrap's humanization. It introduces the rest of the characters from the game that will play important roles in the story. It also sets some plot points that will be important in the future. _

_Remember your ques from earlier chapters_

_("Dee dee do, dee dee dee do" is the Oscar/Buster Music from Arrested Development.)_

_I don't own Borderlands._

* * *

As far as Tiny Tina knew, Gaige was only in her workshop for their bi-weekly tea party. It was a tradition they started a little after Handsome Jack's death. Gaige would come over and have a conversation with Tina. They would talk about whatever Tina felt like, such as her recent kills or "dat ass."

Little did Tina know that she was an ECHOnet celebrity.

Gaige had continued her ECHOcast after arriving on Pandora. She had gained a large amount of followers due to how she made the news, and her chronicling of the events on Pandora had actually won her a few awards. She had become an icon in pop culture, despite the fact that she was technically a criminal. People bought mech and subscriptions just to make sure Gaige had money to keep herself alive, which she thought was nice. People who were not interested in the constant violence the border world had to offer stuck around for Gaige's geeky charm and interesting guests.

Gaige had interviewed many of the saner citizens of Sanctuary, including some of her fellow Vault Hunters, aside from Zero, who avoided the attention, and Krieg, who did not really have anything to say that would be interesting in an interview. She did go to him for soundbites, though. She usually roped in a few other people to host with her. Just about every guest had been popular.

Except Claptrap. Everybody already knew what Claptrap units were, so they were not that interested in the interview. It did not help that Claptrap's banter seemed obviously scripted. It would have seemed funny, but Claptrap' jokes weren't even that funny and, by the end of the interview, he was just crying into the mike. It got pretty depressing really fast.

One of Gaige's most popular guests was Tiny Tina, who had managed to capture the hearts of the ECHOnet. If Tina had known she had become an icon, she would have wound up dead on a mountain of prostitutes and cocaine before she finished puberty.

And it would have been out of her own choice.

Luckily, Gaige had the foresight to think that Tina would be funnier unedited. She assumed that Tina would be popular right away, so she set up a mike to record her natural conversations with Tina over their tea party. Gaige didn't even have to prep questions or anything. Tina would just tell her everything that was going on in her life.

Today was different, however. Tina was not really saying anything, deep in thought. Gaige was somewhat worried that this would not make good radio, but was more worried about what would make Tina so silent. The last time Tina had run out of things to say with her, they wound up improvising a rap battle between two of the stuffed animals also seated at the table.

Gaige was about to ask Tina what was wrong when the 14-year-old spoke up.

"Where do I get parents?"

After hearing about the game Tina played with the older Vault Hunters while the newer ones were beating up a Hyperion informant, Gaige realized why Tina was so open to her: she was helping fill up one of the holes Roland had left. Gaige decided that, since she was becoming a big sister figure to Tina, she should try to act like it, or at least edit the ECHOcast to only show the funny side of Tina, since she did get real on Gaige a few times.

"Where do you get parents?" Gaige repeated Tina's question. She knew what happened to Tina's parents, so she decided to take it slowly. "Where do YOU think you get parents?"

"That's the thing." Tina said, standing on her chair. "I dunno. But I wanna have em! So I can be swagger! They could be all like, ' Tina, girl, stay in yo room.' but then I could be like, 'Man, I just gotta party hard!' Then they'd say 'Tina, we appreciate that and party with you!' And then we'd be awesome!"

"Tina, you realize that, if you had parents, you wouldn't be able to get away with half the crap you do, right?" Gaige asked. She would have added that some parents, like her dad, might actually be OK with it, but that felt like rubbing salt on a wound.

"Yeah, I know, so I gotta pick good ones." Tina said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. "Lot of people I know would be good, but I'm classy, and need to be careful who I chose. You know this junks gonna be front page."

Gaige wasn't exactly sure if that meant Tina knew about the ECHOnet thing, but she wouldn't say anything about it, just in case. A though occurred to her.

"You're gonna be eighteen in, what, four years? Why do you need parents? Your gonna be an adult."

"Well, because SHUT UP, CRIP!" Tina shouted, before regaining composure over her constant insanity. "I'm gonna take a trip up to Sanctuary, take my pick out of the people, see who'd be good folks."

Gaige nodded, before another thought occurred to her. "Wait, you're not asking me? I thought we were tight!" Gaige didn't really want to adopt Tina, but it was the thought that counted.

"Girl, it gotta look believable. No one's gonna believe you were knocked up when you were in kindergarten!" Tina replied. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go use my feminine willies to pick up a parent. You and Mushy Snugglebites the Third continue this conversation. I know it is rude for a lady to leave her own party, but matters must be dealt with." Tina skipped out of her workshop, heading for the nearest fast travel station.

Gaige sat there in silence, before turning over to the stuffed bunny. "So..." she began, before realizing that it was a stuffed animal, not a real person. She considered sending a warning up to Sanctuary, but she was sure Tina would not cause any real damage.

Besides, she was curious to see what would happen.

* * *

She was going to have to be direct with her parent choosing, Tina decided as she walked the streets of Sanctuary. She wasn't exactly sure what to look for in a parent, so she was going to test the waters.

She would have to broach the topic carefully if she wanted to find a good candidate.

So, naturally, when she saw an adult she vaguely recognized, she clung herself to her leg and shouted. "YOU'RE MY NEW MOMMY MAKE ME FOOD!"

There were two problems with this approach. The first was that the adult she had done this to was everyone's favorite socially disabled scientist, Tannis. The second problem was that they actually hadn't met before. Tina had heard of her, but had never actually met her.

Tannis reacted as well as you would expect her to.

* * *

"I guess this wouldn't be the first time you were coated in someones blood." Zed said to Tina, who was washing off the blood that had sprouted from Tannis's nosebleed.

"Boy, I make it rain gore!" Tina replied, spinning the blood-soaked towel above her head.

"Yes, well, I'm not that surprised that Ms. I-have-a-real-degree is afraid of a little commitment" Zed said. "'Oh, No! A child! I'm gonna squirt my blood on you!'" Zed said in a high pitch voice, attempting to mimic Tannis.

"Yeah, I might need to change my swag." Tina said. She the looked over at Zed. "You wanna be my daddy?"

"Well, Tina, I would if I could, but after my stint as a school nurse fifteen years age, I'm no longer allowed to be responsible for children."

"Alright, what about Scooter? He might make a good dad."

"Do you really think that?" Zed asked Tina. She thought about it for a second, made a disturbed face, and shook her head. "That's what I thought. How about Ellie? She's nice."

"Oh nononono!" Tina replied, shaking her hands and head. "You can't find your parents hot! And that girl's _damn _fine!"

"OK then." Zed said, taking the towel and squeezing it into a bottle. "Well, thanks for the blood donation anyway! Good luck with the parents thing!"

"Goodbye, Dr. Zed!" Tina ran out of the clinic, heading to the gun shop.

* * *

"Marcus!" Tina shouted as she entered his shop. "Wanna be my dad?"

"No." Marcus replied, busy tinkering with something behind the counter.

"Why?" Tina asked.

"One, you're insane. And two, well..." Marcus was beginning to find a way to convey something. Luckily, that something was exiting the training room with a handful of guns.

The boy had messy brown hair under an oversized tweed cap. His face was messy with dirt and freckles. He wore mostly torn and dirty cloths that were covered in sewed on patches, as well as a brown scarf around his neck.

"I cleaned up the room, Mr. Marcus!" The small boy, about a year younger than Tina, said.

Tina look between the boy and Marcus. She realized what was up. "You pop-blocked me!" She said to the boy.

"...Who are you?" the boy said,somewhat confused.

"Toby, don't worry about Tina. Tina, this is Toby, the future owner of Marcus Munitions!"

"Why don't you just, you know, make a baby?" Tina asked.

"Where do babies come from?" Toby asked.

"Shut up, Toby." Marcus replied. "Also, I would, but turns out I'm sterile. So I needed a kid. This kid kept hanging around, so I decided I might as well have him do a little work. One thing lead to another and I'm legally is dad."

"He tells the best stories!" Toby said, with an excited smile on his face.

"SHUT UP, TOBY!" Tina shouted, before stomping out of the shop.

"Why's she so mad?" Toby asked Marcus.

"If I understood women, do you think I would have adopted you?" Marcus replied. He didn't give Toby that long to process the sentence. "Alright, now let's practice your customer support skills."

A few minutes later, the two had switched places, with Toby behind the counter and Marcus on the other side. Marcus was holding a toy water gun. "Alright, this gun doesn't work. Can I get a refund?"

"Well, as you saw when you came in, our returns policy is clearly stated on the front wall." Toby replied.

Marcus looked confused. He turned around to look at the back wall."Wait, what returns-?" He felt a splash of water on his shoulder. He turned around and looked at the boy, who was aiming his small water gun at Marcus.

"No refunds." Toby said.

Marcus smiled at the boy. "Makes me proud, that boy." he said to himself.

* * *

She had asked Brick to be her father. He suggested that they test it out before making it official, something Tina couldn't argue with. She was spending the day with him, doing activities he felt he would do with a daughter. Tina assumed this meant they would be doing cool stuff, like blowing up bandits.

Instead, they were sitting in Brick's Sanctuary apartment, having a small tea party.

Tina was a girl who appreciated her fancy occasions, but there was a time and place for that kind of stuff. She was wondering where Brick had gotten the dress she was wearing. Also, all the other occupants of the tea party were dolls, which Brick also had. It was also pretty disturbing how the dolls were wearing the same kind of dress as her.

She decided to broach the topic to Brick.

"So, Brick, when are we going to do cool stuff, like killing bandits? I like tea parties, but there's gotta be another side to this, right?"

"Nope." Brick said, sipping a tea-cup that had no tea in it.

"Wait, so this is all you're gonna do with me?!" Tina asked.

"Yup." Brick replied, eating a cookie. "If you become my daughter, you're not allowed to get into any danger."

"Yeah, this is a no go." Tina said after a pause. "You got issues, Brick. I like you as a friend, not a dad. It's not you- well, actually, it kinda is. Sorry, you suck."

Brick sighed. "OK then. Return the dress and we'll go shoot up some bandits, alright?"

Tina grinned "Let's fry their butts!"

* * *

After her outing with Brick, Tina decided to just do a lightning round of parent asking with the Vault Hunters. She walked into the Crimson Raider HQ, where all the other Vault Hunters were.

"Axton!" She shouted. "Wanna be my daddy, scrub?!"

"No, not really." Axton replied, not even looking up from the gun he was tinkering with,

"Tina, what-"

"Maya, Maya, Maya, Maya!" Tina sang, then paused. "MAYA!" She shouted. "Wanna be my mom?!"

"I'm sorry Tina, No. But-"

"ZERO!" Tina shouted, going down the line. "Wanna-"

"No."

"SAL!" Tina shouted, then paused. "Sup?"

"Eh, not much."

"Cool." Tina replied. She shouted up tho the second floor. "LILY IN THE SKY WITH DIMONDS! WANT TO BE MY MOMMY?!"

"NO!" Lilith shouted back.

"Where's Mordy?" Tina asked Maya.

"At Moxxi's, but I don't-" Tina didn't stay to hear the rest of Maya's response. She dashed out over to the bar.

"Well, that went well." Axton said.

"Could have been worse." Salvador said. "As bad as it is that he's gone, it would have been pretty hard on Krieg if he was here, with her asking him to be her dad." This earned the short man a glare from his Siren teammate. "What? All things considered..."

_Dee dee do, dee dee dee do_

"Shut is, Sal."

* * *

Tina ran into the bar and up to Mordecai, who was drinking a bottle of skag ale.

"MORDY!"

"Don't shout."

"Wanna be my daddy?"

"No."

Tina was actually starting to get annoyed with all the refusals. "Why not?"

"Because he's afraid of commitment." Moxxi said, joining into the conversation.

"Says the woman on her fourth husband." Mordy shot back.

"Hey, I was just having trouble finding Mr. Right!" Moxxi said. She turned to Tina. "Are you gonna ask me, sweetie?"

"Nope." Tina replied.

"Wait, why not?!" Moxxi asked, kind of annoyed at Tina's refusal.

"Because you screwed up your kids." Mordecai answered.

"Hey! Me and Ellie might have our disagreements, but she came out alright!"

"What about Scooter?"

"I don't know what happened with Scooter, but I still love him to bits."

"Did you use innuendos when he was a kid?"

"Yes, but-" Moxxi paused. "OK, yeah, that actually might have been my fault."

"Where's the psycho guy?" Tina asked, butting into the conversation between the two exes

"Oh...Uhm..." Moxxi and Mordy weren't exactly sure how to respond. Tina had a hard time understanding death, or at least death to people she knows. God knows how hard it would be for her to comprehend someone losing control of themselves and attempting to kill themselves.

Also, there was Krieg's connection to Tina...

_Dee dee do, dee dee dee do_

_"_Uh...Blow jobs?" Moxxi said, showing how nervous she was. This earned her an odd glance from the other two at the bar.

Tina was starting to get suspicious about the silence of the two adults. They needed someone to change the subject, who would completely take all the attention away from the awkward situation.

Since Claptrap was not around yet, the job fell upon Moxxi's new husband.

"MOXXI!" Mr. Torgue shouted as he walked into the bar. "HOW ARE YOU TODAY?"

"Oh, Torgue! Fine, we are all fine!" Moxxi said, relived that she didn't have to answer Tina question.

Tina did not forget her question. "I was asking about Psycho Vault Hunter man! Could he be my dad?"

"SHE KNOWS THAT?"

_Dee dee do, dee dee dee do_

"No, no, no." Mordecai said. "She's looking for someone to adopt her."

"WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY SO?! I WOULD GLADLY DO THAT!"

"Really?" Tina asked, actually sounding like a girl her age instead of a psychopathic pimp daddy.

"WHY WOULD I NOT?! I CAN NOT THINK OF ANYBODY ELSE I WOULD WANT TO BE MY SUCESSOR! YOU ARE AWESOME!" Torgue shouted.

Tina, in spite of herself, squealed in delight. "I can't wait to tell Sir Reginald about this! He is going to be so excited!" Tina ran out of the bar, to prep herself for adoption. "Although, I'll probably have to make sure he doesn't stay with me only because of the money."

The three adults stood at the bar in silence. Mordy broke it.

"Did you just adopt a child just to avoid an awkward conversation?"

"PREHAPS!"

"Well," Moxxi said. "I'm actually glad she didn't want me to adopt her. I wasn't planning on doing it."

Mordecai paused. "But you two are married."

"Yes"

"And he just adopted her."

"Yes" Beat. "Wait. Crap."

* * *

_Writing Tina is pretty similar to writing Claptrap. I just gotta get the character voice in my head and write how they would react. She is a crazy, yet also somewhat fragile character._

_The Tannis part is based off of a tweet from Tina's time controlling the ECHOnet Twitter._

_Toby is the little boy Marcus tells the DLC stories to. I might have aged him up to have him be Tina's foil. He was mainly introduced for the joke, but I might use him for stuff later._

_The Maya song Tina sang is the Apprentice Money song, in case you were wondering._

_I was going to do a small bit with Scooter, with him finding himself attracted to Tina since he was adopting her and being disturbed by that, but it came out a little too creepy..._

_Sorry for all these long chapter with a lack of the advertised human Claptrap. The storyline in general is split into two halves. When I get to the second half, you'll realize what I did. The first half focus on building up the second, which could be seen as the story this story is meant to be. All this before stuff is important world building._

_Don't worry, though. The next few chapters will be short little tidbits about Claptrap getting accustom to being human, then I'll delve into the main story again._

_Also, I know that Tina's parents were confirmed to have died in front of her. I will explain how Krieg factors into this later, possible in a POV oneshot like this, which would explain how Krieg got to where he is in this story._

_If you want to know about Gaige's records of her adventures, read __**Gaige's ECHO Log.**__It's a really great story and I recommend it. It pretty much fills up that part of the story. _

_Also, I'm drawing a bit of a blank on what shinanagins Claptrap can get into in before the next big plot point. If anyone has any idea on what could happen, put it in a review. Nothing that would take too long. Just a few quick things that can happen. I have a few ideas, but i feel i might need a few more before getting to the next plot point._

_OK, that's all for now. R&R!_


	6. Awkwardness and Exposition

_I wasn't going to upload this chapter until a few days from now, but i remembered that i promised that i would post chapters after i finished them. SO here you got. A double dose of Wayward Son._

_I tried something a little new with this chapter. It introduces a new plot line, but it's not gonna be the main one, so if you don't like it, that's ok._

* * *

To make a long story short, everybody reacted to Claptrap's new body in the same way as Maya (with complete rage), Hammerlock (Depressed fascination), or Salvador (General disinterest).

A few days had passed since he arrived in Sanctuary. Claptrap was beginning to realize that he was going to have to find something to do now that he was human. Beforehand, people had just assumed he was useless and could not really give to society. Now that he was human, however, people expected something from him. He was able to live off of the money he scavenged from those bandits for a little while, but he would have to figure himself out sooner or later.

But he had to settle a few personal things first.

He had the power to overcome an obstacle that had impaired him all of his life. Whenever he saw this, it was as though it was taunting him. This was retribution.

Claptrap was nervous. He was about to do something he use to dream of, despite the fact he wasn't able to dream. He had to ball through it. Final Countdown and all that crap. This was the end of an oppression.

This was a revolution.

The end of the tyranny

The tyranny of steps.

Claptrap went up a few steps.

He turned around and shouted. "TAKE THAT, STAIRS! I HAVE DEFEATED YOU! HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT?! NOW WHO'S A SAD LOSER?!"

He attempted to take a step backwards, before falling down the stairs.

He lied on the ground and muttered "Someday, I will have my revenge...'"

He was planning his revenge on the stairs when he saw an ECHO recorder land next to him from the top of the stairs. He looked up, and saw none other than Tannis, looking down at the recorder, fuming with rage.

"Get out!" She shouted at it. "We are over! This time for sure!"

The recorder played its own. "But, baby-" Tannis said on the recording in a deeper voice.

"But nothing!" Tannis interrupted the recorder. "You are an asshole and you don't respect me one bit!"

"But, baby-"

"You always try to have the last word! I hate that!"

"But, baby-"

"I never should have told you I came to Sanctuary! I knew we broke up for a reason! Now stop harassing me!"

"But, baby-"

A passerby spoke to Claptrap, who had walked over to the sidewalk after falling. "That's actually pretty sad."

"Tell me about it." Claptrap said, rubbing his hurt arm.

"It's causing a bit of a ruckus. She's just embarrassing herself."

Claptrap stood up. "I'm gonna help!"

"Oh, that's good, I guess. Are you gonna-" Claptrap was already heading toward the stairs before the man could finish.

"But, baby-"

"I knew you never liked those ceiling chairs, but that was such a rude thing to say!"

"Hey!" Tannis turned over to Claptrap, thinking he was addressing her. However, he was actually addressing the recorder. "She doesn't like you, pal!"

"But, baby-"

"Look, I've been there, but no means no!"

"But, baby-"

"You sound drunk. How about I take you somewhere to rest?"

Claptrap picked up the recorder and brought it to a random building.

"OK, so just sleep it off, and if you still feel like this, you and Tannis can have a mature conversation about it on her own time, if she wants to."

"But, baby-"

"Dude, I'm not your baby! I don't swing that way!"

"But, baby-"

Claptrap had already left the repeating tape to its endless loop. He walked over to Tannis.

She brushed back a stray hair. "Thanks for that, Claptrap. He was one of my old flames. I left him years ago, but he won't take no for an answer."

Claptrap grinned. "He sounded drunk to me. And for the record-" Claptrap stopped. He turned around and realized he had walked up the stairs when he went to talk to Tannis.

"I did it." he said. There was a pause. "I did it!" he shouted.

"What did you do, if I may ask?" Tannis, well, asked.

"I climbed the stairs!" he said. "I feel..great! But...not as great as I thought." he continued. "Wonder why?"

"Well, it is a big deal , climbing these stairs. I know they gave me trouble." Tannis said to Claptrap. There was an awkward silence. "Actually, I WAS going to contact you. I needed to get some samples from you, for science."

Claptrap looked at Tannis, the realized what she meant. "OH! Oh, because of the robot-to-human thing! Yeah! That's it!" He scratched the back of his head. "Sorry, I'm not the best with social questions."

Tannis laughed, surprising herself. "You're saying that to me?"

Claptrap chuckled. "Uh, yeah, I guess that's funny..."

"We should go back to my place." Tannis said, before adding, "My LAB! LAB. Not my house. No, not like that." Tannis didn't realize she was blushing. Neither did Claptrap.

"Uhm, alright, sure! Let's do that!" Claptrap said, following Tannis.

The bystander observed the two socially inept people, then glanced over at the ECHO recorder, which was still continuing its "But, baby-" loop.

"Crazy idiots." he said.

* * *

_Clyde Trappington here. I have been on Pandora for one week now. _

_I am on a Hyperion sponsored trip to the planet. I am chronicling the landscape, nature, and culture.. _

_My team is obedient, which is good. I don't have time to be dealing with a group of Neanderthals. _

_So far we have chronicled most of the beasts of the land. We will likely be finished gathering information on them by the time the month is over_

_However, I believe there can be much more work on the culture of the land. Specifically the idea of the Vault._

_I will have another report done later. _

_Trappington out._

* * *

"So that was in the tapes I got?"

"No, it was in the tape you helped Hammerlock carry here."

Claptrap and Tannis were in Tannis's lab in the Crimson Raider HQ, looking over the Echo-logs from the Southern Shelf.

"It's part of a set. There are seven tapes in total, but we only have four of them. Hyperion tried to crack the lock on them, but they were never able to." Tannis smirked to herself. "Well, I guess they were all the idiots we thought they were. I could have decoded this with my eyes shut. Which I did, for the record. They just take a while."

"Yeah!" Claptrap said, not really listening to her. He was distracted by the pain in his arm. Tannis had taken a blood sample from Claptrap the only way she know how: violently stab a needle into his arm.

Claptrap becoming reacquainted with pain pretty fast. It was one of those things that he was 'lucky' to have been able to experience as a robot to become accustom with it.

"What kind of first name is Clyde, anyway?"

"One for people who think they are smart, but really aren't"

"And don't get me started on Trappington! Sound like an asshole!"

Tannis once again laughed, surprising herself once again. "What I'm curious about is how early this was recorded before I got on Pandora. I would have seen a lot less of my colleagues being torn apart if we had a full record on what happened." She looked at Claptrap. "If you were still a robot, I would have used you to see if Hyperion still had the Trappington records."

Claptrap's original body was nowhere to be found, for the record.

"Kinky." Claptrap said. The awkward pause between the two made them aware of how close they were.

"...So I'm gonna go!" Claptrap said.

"Yeah! Sure! Go sleep in your dirty bed wherever you sleep!" Tannis said, gathering her supplies.

"Ok then." Claptrap said, leaving the HQ.

Tannis looked over at the door Claptrap had left through. She calmly put her supplies down, then promptly vomited in a bucket.

As she wiped up her mouth, and as Claptrap left the HQ, they both thought the same thing.

"What the hell just happened?"

Claptrap had just had his first experience with hormones. God help him.

* * *

_I might have written the two character OOC. I'm trying to be completely straight with a love triangle between Claptrap, Tannis, and a recording device. _

_I'll explain why Maya hates Claptrap later._

_Also, you might be rolling your eyes about the Clyde Trappington thing, but just keep with it. I might surprise you._

_Like I said in the last chapter, I want to do a few chapters like this before the next big story point. I think I might do three more. If you have any situation ideas, suggest it in a review. I'll credit you. I just need a little brain jogging._

_R&R!_


	7. The Skags and Bees

_Another day, another chapter. I feel like I've been focusing a lot on sex in these chapters. I want to change that up in the next two._

* * *

Claptrap decided that he needed to try out some of the perks of being human. He had to deal with some of the less great things, like eating and pain and emotions, so he decided to go to Moxxi's to partake in the natural and beautiful human tradition of attempting to get shitfaced.

He was sitting at the end of the bar. Axton was sitting next to him, and Salvador was next to him. They didn't come together, but the two Vault Hunters knew they would not be able to forgive themselves if they did not witness the new human's first time getting drunk.

Unfortunately, Claptrap was having some trouble.

"UGH!" He spat out the liquid in his mouth. "This tastes horrible! Is that what it's suppose to taste like skag piss?"

"Well, sugar," Moxxi said, over the bar, "It was made on Pandora, so it probably has some in it." She looked over at Axton. "If SOMEONE could talk to his ex about starting a better trade system, we could actually have something quality to drink!"

"Hey! Sarah's only in charge of Vault stuff. I'm as tired of this crap as anybody else is. Not my fault Pandora has nothing good to export."

"How do you know what piss tastes like?" Sal asked.

"Scooter told me it was good for you! I thought it was like leaked oil! You just put it back in there!" Claptrap said.

"Well," Axton said. "Considering what it came out of, you should kinda know it was waste."

"What do you mean? That leaking wire?"

"Leaking wire? You mean your-" Axton paused. "Oh."

"Oh, what?" Sal said.

"I don't think he knows what that is?"

"What, his dick?"

"Pshhh!" Claptrap said, faking a laugh and waving a hand at the two. "I know what sex is! I did it all the time as a robot!"

"Remember the generator?" Hammerlock chimed in. He was in a booth, looking over some journals.

"In my defense, that generator was totally coming on to me! And then she never called me back!" Claptrap took another drink of the skag ale. "Seems like a bit of an acquired taste."

"Mental image aside, do you know how HUMANS have sex?" Axton asked.

"Umm...Well, no." Claptrap said. "How do humans do the nasty?"

Salvador and Axton look at each other. They both suddenly tapped their noses. "Not it!" they both shouted. Axton, however, was slower than Sal.

"Dammit!" he said. He sighed and turned to Claptrap. "Alright. How do I do this? Do you know what you consider attractive?"

"Oh yeah! That's when you feel all weird around someone." Claptrap paused. "In the loins!"

"Yes, loins, whatever. Alright, now what does that feeling urge you to do?"

Claptrap rubbed his chin, trying to figure it out. He then proceeded to fiddle with his pants.

"CLAPTRAP! WAIT-"

* * *

"Welcome to Zed's sex ed!" Zed said to a small makeshift classroom in his clinic. "I assume your parents and/or guardians have dropped you off here to learn about the wonders of reproduction!"

Toby looked over at Tina, who was the only other kid in class. He shrugged, then looked up at Zed. "We're both adopted, and the only kids in here."

"Shut up, Toby." Zed said, before continuing his lecture. "Now, I also assume your parents informed you about the _magical _changes happening to your body!"

"Moxxi told me that jazz, before she tricked me and Papa Torgue to coming here!" Tina said.

"Now, Tina, Mr. Torgue just need a few shots. He was over due and Moxxi was worried."

"NO NEEDLE CAN PENETRATE MY F**KING ABS!"

"I'll be with you in a few minutes, Mr. Flexington." Zed said.

"That is an awesome name, by the way, Miss Tina." Toby said to the girl.

"Shut up, Toby!" Tina shouted. " Your new last name is Munitions!"

"Actually, my new last name is Kincaid."

"SHUT UP, TOBY!" Claptrap shouted at the boy. He was seated awkwardly between the two children.

"Claptrap!" Zed said. "Do not interrupt the class. Do you remember why you're here?"

Claptrap sighed. "Because I tried to take off my pants at Moxxi's."

"Correct. Speaking of pants," Zed reached under his desk, and pulled out several dirty magazines. "This will be your reading material. I want you to look over this for the rest of the class." Zed slipped his gloved back on. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have to find a way to stick a needle into that thing back there." He grabbed a syringe and a hammer before heading to the room Mister Torgue was in.

The three sexually naïve students looked over the magazines.

"That doesn't look natural." Toby said, holding the magazine upside down.

"Shut up, Toby." Tina said. "Dayyyym, look at those legs! MHH MHH!" She said, as the magazine unfolded.

"Oh!" Claptrap said, looking at the magazine. "I know what this is!"

"What?" the two teens asked.

"It's porn! Stupid Zed! I know what porn is! I need a car battery!"

The two kids shrugged and brought Claptrap a car battery that was in the clinic for some reason. Claptrap took the two tweezers.

"OK, so I did this all the time as a robot! You take these and put them on your chargers, which I assume are these things on my chest!"

"Wait, if this was from when you were a robot, Mr. Trap, then-"

"Shut up, Toby!" Tina shouted.

"Yeah! My last name's not 'Trap!" Claptrap added.

"But-"

It was too late. Claptrap had already put the tweezers on his nipples and promptly felt the charge charging through him.

Fun fact: Humans do not react to electricity the same as robots.

The screams were overheard and the smell of burnt flesh was smelt. It was lucky he was already in a clinic.

Moxxi decided to bluntly tell Tina and Toby about sex, since as she was not sure who else to trust with the matter.

Claptrap was kind of on his own.

* * *

_-OUT OF MY TENT!_

_Sorry about that. Trappington again. That was my son. My wife died before I left, so I had to take her kid, which has become a load on the expedition._

_He annoys the crew and is a drain on resources. I honestly don't know why people have children._

_Anyway, it turns out that the popular legend about the Vault are that they hold treasure. However, people are conflicted about the location of the Vault, or what exactly they hold._

_Some people believe that they hold treasure. Others say power. Some even say it is a prison to a great beast._

_People are conflicted about these opinions._

_I do not have a lot of scientific reasoning for this, but I believe that there is a reason for these conflicting reasons._

_I believe there is more than one Vault._

* * *

_Don't worry, guy. I'll get Claptrap drunk. And it will be as magical as you can imagine. I'm going to do two more day in life chapters. _

_Looking at this chapter and the last chapter, it might have made more sense for this chapter to have gone first. I didn't know this chapter would exist until after i wrote the one before it, however._

_Still need ideas. In general, if you are reviewing, and have an idea for a situation, just mention it. It doesn't matter what part of the story I'm in. I'm still gonna need slice of life chapters for later._

_R&R!_


	8. Day in the Life

_So this chapter took a little while to write. Sorry to keep people waiting. I got caught up in other things._

_I decided to cut the filler and get back to the plot._

_Also, Toby has become a bigger character then I originally intended. He was originally was going to be a one off joke, but I like how he fits in, so he's officially a side character. Check back to the Tina one shot, I updated his description _

_Anyway, I don't own Borderlands._

* * *

Claptrap awoke in Zed's clinic, as he had ever since he came to Sanctuary. He didn't really have that much of a say in the matter. It was just that, everyday he had been in the city, he had been injured in some way or another. He was dealt a few blows while being introduced to everybody, he fell down a stair case, electrocuted himself, and forgot that he needed to chew his food, among other things.

So, every night, he wound up going to Zed's to get patched up. It was usually late when he got there, so he just slept there after. Zed didn't mind, since he always had the extra bed. The only reason Zed was able to stand him was that, by the time he got the the clinic, Claptrap was too exhausted to annoy him. In the morning, Zed was already chopping up somebody, so Claptrap quickly left to let the "doctor" to do his thing.

Claptrap left the clinic to do what he always did on his downtime: walk around Sanctuary, annoying the citizens. He would walk down the streets, randomly complementing people on how they look and what they are wearing, like he did back when he was a robot. The general populous generally ignored him, like they did back when he was a robot.

He would occasionally beatbox in order to get attention as well. This would get noticed by the populous, although not the good kind of attention. Nobody on Pandora really beat round the bush about anything, so when they didn't like something, they would show their dislike in the bluntest way possible

So, after having someone threaten to cut his tongue out, Claptrap decided to pay his Vault Hunter friends a visit.

* * *

Krieg had not caused any noticeable trouble while he was traversing Pandora on his own, but the Vault Hunters knew that, sooner or later, they would have to deal with their distressed friend. So Axton called a meeting of the Vault Hunters still in Sanctuary, which included himself, Maya, Gaige, and Salvador, in order to organize a plan of attack.

"As far we know, Krieg is held up in a crashed cruiser over Terramorphous Peak." the commando said, pointing it out on a map of the surrounding area.

"That still kinda confuses me." Gaige said. "The Krieg I remember would run right into danger, no matter what. Knowing him, he should be right below the city, screaming something about tacos at us. Why would he hide?"

"I have a bit of a theory." Maya said. "but I don't really have anyone to confirm it. I doubt Tannis or Zed know a lot about how the mind works. Krieg was fighting within his mind, so that meant that the crazy part of him had to put some effort into combating sane Krieg. Now that it's won out, crazy Krieg can do things with his mind he couldn't before. Maybe it's organizing his chaos."

Gaige was about mention something about chaos and anarchy, being the punk girl she is, but she was cut off by Axton.

"Right. So it's also not that out of the question that he's also got some other bandits hanging around him. Other psychos have done it before." Axton said. "We should also bare in mind that Krieg has no more limitations. There were things the sane part of his mind probably wouldn't let him do. We might not know what we're getting into."

Maya looked at Axton, concern written on her face. While she was devastated with how things with Krieg turned out, she was also concerned with Axton. The commando had a completely serious and focused look on his face, which was far different from the cocky expression that he usually wore. He talked in a completely formal and emotionless tone, which actually reminded her of Roland's voice. It was as if he was distancing himself from what he was actually saying or, for that matter, what he was planning on doing.

Maya had only seen Axton like thin two other times: when they confronted Angel and when they killed Jack. She assumed he picked up this trait back when he worked with Dhal.

Maya shuddered to think what Axton did under Dhal that caused him to have to distance himself that much.

"There is still one problem: The door. " Axton pointed to some pictures that had been pinned on the map. "It's Hyperion, it's bulletproof, and it's locked. If we can't open that, we can't get to Krieg."

The other Vault Hunters started to think, but Maya noticed something Axton said.

"Wait, why is it important that it's Hyperion?"

"Because I have an idea you might not like."

Maya was about to ask what he meant when she heard the door slam open. The Siren, along with the other three Vault Hunters, turned to see who it it was, and all hope sank from her face.

"Hello, minions!" Claptrap proclaimed, seating himself at the end of the table. "What's up?"

"Ah, Claptrap! I was about to call you. I need you to do something for us." Axton said, confirming Maya's fears.

"I knew you guys would need me!" Claptrap proclaimed. "Since Zero's not here, I can be your new cool, badass sniper-ninja guy! I can even turn invisible like he could! Check it!" Claptrap closed his eyes really tight and grunted. He tensed up his body for a solid five seconds before giving up. "Huh. Guess that was only a robot thing."

"Well, actually, I wanted to see if you could do something else for us. You can still unlock Hyperion stuff, can you?"

Claptrap thought back to the locked ECHO tapes. "Absolutely!"

"Well, we got a door that needs opening up at Terramorphous Peak tomorrow."

"T-T-T- Terramorphous Peak?" Claptrap said weakly. He was actually surprised to find that it terrified him. He expressed terror before, when he was still a robot, but this was the first time he actually felt it.

However, it also occurred to him that this could be his chance to prove his usefulness to the Vault Hunters. If he could manage that, maybe they would accept him, and allow him to also become a Vault Hunter. He had seen many Vault Hunter off on their adventures back at Fyrestone, and many dead ones back at the Southern Shelf, so he always had a fascination with becoming a Vault Hunter. Now that he was human, maybe he could achieve this newly realized dream.

"W-Well," Claptrap stuttered, before regaining his confidence. "you've got the right guy for the job! You can call me Claptrap: Scientific Marvel of Opening Doors!" he stated, striking a pose.

The Vault Hunters looked at Claptrap. Maya face-palmed, Gaige giggled, and Salvador had fallen asleep back when they were talking about Krieg's mental state.

Axton simply shrugged "Alright then. Make sure you're here bright and early tomorrow. Bring a weapon and a shield. If you don't have one, pick one up in the Raider's armory"

"Got it!" Claptrap exclaimed. "I'm gonna get my shotgun!" The former robot turned around and ran out the door.

Maya looked at Axton with an annoyed look on her face. "Really?"

"Look, all he's doing is coming along for the ride and opening a door. Even back when he was a robot, his heart was in the right place. Now that he's human, he's gotta earn his keep. If he can do this, we'll give him a little more work. If not, he'll be dead, and out of our hair." Axton said, knowing what Maya thought about Claptrap.

Maya was raised in isolation. The only men she had ever seen were the monks. By the time she arrived on Pandora, she had only know men who were, at the very least, respectful of women.

Then she met Claptrap.

Claptrap was definitely not the worst offender of sexism. There were plenty of people on Pandora who were far worse. He probably wasn't sexist so much as he is obnoxious and somewhat perverted. The fact of the matter was that he was the first person Maya had ever met who hit on her in an obnoxious way. She couldn't even remember the pick up line. All she could remember was the rage she felt when she realized what he had said.

Later she found out that was just what Claptrap was like. He somehow managed to get under someone's skin in just the mos perfect way. She always harbored anger toward the small robot, since he never really did anything to redeem himself. She hated how he always went around, messing things up, and never taking responsibility. She consoled herself with the fact that he was just a robot, so he did not represent the human race.

Until now.

In hindsight, there were a few new perks to Claptrap being human. He could be silenced (i.e. gagging), he could run out of energy, and you could kick him in the nuts, since he could feel pain.

Still, they needed him for the mission. She owed that much to Krieg.

"Alright, but you're driving him."

* * *

_OK, so I managed to convince Hyperion to allow me to expand my trip, so long as I design some AI for them. Some sort of Pandora guide. I could hash that out in my sleep._

_Good news, though. I-I TOLD YOU YOU WERE NOT ALLOWED TO KEEP IT_

_-But Daddy..._

_NO BUTS! GET OUT OF MY AREA!_

_Sorry about that. Really wish he wasn't here. Probably too late to attempt to convince Hyperion to take the kid off me._

_Anyway, I managed to confirm my theory during an expedition the other day._

_We found a map of what I believe to be all the Vaults on Pandora. _

_Judging by the surrounding walls, there are other Vaults on other planets, but the maps have all rotted out. But they don't matter._

_I was tempted to tell Hyperion about the map, but my...contact there told me to withhold the information._

_From what I can tell, there are only two kinds of Vaults._

_The first kind of Vault is some kind of Eridian armory. The weapons in this Vault are made out of some sort of substance that changes over time. Depending on the culture of the outside world, the guns will change to match the modern weapons. _

_To put it one way, it is very possible to find a Hyperion pistol in a Vault. _

_As fascinating as these Vaults are, the second kind of Vault interests me more. They are prisons for some sort of Eridian creatures. Who know why they created them. These thing have the potential to destroy the world, no, the galaxy if released. _

_That kind of power...If someone could harness it..._

* * *

"...There is no way that dude didn't go crazy."

"I wouldn't jump to that conclusion right away. He might simply just be dead."

After the first awkward meeting, Tannis and Claptrap began hanging out every afternoon. Tannis was always focused on analyzing the Trappington tapes while Claptrap added his own commentary on the recordings. When a tape was not available, they would simply talk about what was happening in Sanctuary.

One would have assumed that they would not get along in any way, but, for some reason, they did.

"It's a shame, though." Tannis continued. "I imagine the information he gathered on the Vaults is fascinating."

"Isn't that why you're looking at these tapes?" Claptrap asked.

"Yes, but his real notes would be much more useful." Tannis replied, before quickly jolting something down in her notes. "Note to self: look for Trappington's notes on Pandora's wildlife and cross-reference them with Hammerlock's almanac notes. Could potential learn the mating habits of a thresher."

"OH! Threshers! Transition!" Claptrap exclaimed. "I'm going to Terramorphous Peak tomorrow to help the Vault Hunters with Krieg!"

"Ah, yes. Krieg. I was always curious about what Hyperion did to him. Have to remember to have someone recover that info from the slag testing plant." Tannis said. "Why are they having you help?"

"I'm..." He paused for dramatic effect. "...going to open the door!"

There was an awkward pause. "I would be quite interested in seeing if you manage to open it the way you used to." Tannis said. "It would mean that you retained some of your abilities from back when you were a robot."

"Well, I DID find out I couldn't be invisible."

"That was an upgrade, so odds are it wouldn't convert. Regardless, it would bring us a step closer to finding out what you really are." Tannis turned to another page of her notes. "As far as I know, there is nothing off about you. You seem to be a completely normal human being. Have you noticed anything or have done anything a human normally shouldn't?"

Claptrap thought about it. There were a few things, but he had forgotten about them over the last few busy days.

"Nope! Just a full-blown man here!"

"Noted." Tannis wrote something in her notes, before turning to one last page. "While you're at Terramorphous Peak, could you check for eggs?"

Claptrap's face paled. "E-Eggs?"

"I want to find out if it is officially extinct or if it managed to produce offspring. It would make the bookkeeping simpler. Just keep an eye out for offspring in general." She reached into a draw and pulled out a large syringe. "If you do find anything, stick this into it. You'll have the Vault Hunters to kill it, so you just have to extract essence from its body. I wish to study it more, as well as see what kind of seasoning it would go well with."

"You eat a lot of weird stuff. What does you poop look like?"

"Colorful. Speaking of stool, I need a sample." Tannis handed Claptrap a small plastic container. "You'll figure out what to do.

* * *

Claptrap walked down the darkened streets of Sanctuary, on his way to Zed's clinic.

Tannis had gotten everything she needed from him. He still wasn't sure what made him feel so weird around her. It was the feeling he felt around people like Lilith or Maya or Moxxi, and he knew they were hot, but he was not ready to be attracted to Tannis. He shrugged and decided to ask someone more experienced than him later.

Zed was closing shop when Claptrap arrived. Zed looked up at Claptrap, surprised.

"Claptrap! What's wrong today?"

"Oh, nothing. I feel great!"

"Oh." A pause. "What are you doing here?"

"I sleep here every night! You know that!" Claptrap said, smiling.

"Yeah, but that was because you were hurt. This is a clinic, not a shelter. Why don't you go home?"

"...Home?" Claptrap asked.

"Yeah, you know, the place you live." Zed said.

"Oh, right!" Claptrap said.

"Ok then, so why don't you go now? I've had a long day and don't want to put up with you."

"Alright!" Claptrap said, his smile growing along with the worried look in his eyes. "Good night then."

"Goodnight."

"Just...Just heading home."

"I can see that."

"Walking down to my place."

"You can do that without talking."

"I might hum a little."

"Shut the hell up, Claptrap."

* * *

It was a pretty quick walk from Zed's clinic to Claptrap's place.

The reason for that might be that Claptrap's "place" was simply a dump.

Back when he was a robot, Claptrap didn't really care about living conditions. He wasn't technically alive, so it didn't really matter to him.

Now that he need somewhere to sleep, however, he realized the issue.

He found an old mattress in a pile of trash. It smelt of horrible things, but it was the best he could do. There were actually two different mattresses in the pile, so Claptrap decided to use the extra one as a blanket, seeing as there was nothing useable in the pile. He could not see anything that he could use as a pillow, so he decided to not have one.

He attempted to sleep, sandwiched between the two stained mattresses, but the stench of them as well as the other accumulated objects kept him awake. The pizza from his lonely party about a year or two ago was beginning to horrible mold, creating another stench to match the one of the mattresses.

Claptrap closed his eyes and sighed.

It was only one night.

And tomorrow he could finally prove his worth.

Claptrap eventually fell asleep in the forgotten dump.

* * *

_Yes, the plot moved forward!_

_The next Chapter will be another one shot, explaining more about Krieg's situation. I won't go that much into it since I don't want to spoil it, but you could probably guess what it's about._

_Alright then! R&R! Live life!_


	9. The Psycho's Lament

Remember the end of the last Chapter? How it got kinda depressing? That's happening again, this time for the whole short chapter! Yay! :D

As promised in the Tina chapter, here's the Krieg chapter!

R&R!

* * *

_I suppose this was inevitable._

_I mean, I always knew I would wind up like this. _

_I thought I was prepared._

_I wasn't able to control myself a little_

_I made friends._

_People who cared about me._

_I even fell in love, one-sided as it may have been._

_I was a fool._

_I let my guard down._

**HE **_won._

_I suppose I should have known I wouldn't win after I began referring to myself as two different people._

_Now I've been shoved into a tiny corner of what used to be my mind, somewhere he CAN'T EVEN HEAR ME!_

_...Still nothing._

_Worth a shot._

_Now I'm waiting here for my friends to come and kill me._

_With friends like these, you know?_

_I don't know why he's waiting here._

_I don't even know why I'm still talking._

_I suppose it's better than just watching the horrible things I might do._

_On the plus side, I've been pushed to the same corner of my mind where all my memories were kept, so I can look at them now._

_...Well, that actually might not be a plus. _

_Makes things harder._

_They said I was a bandit before becoming a Vault Hunter._

_Yeah, well I suppose I was a bandit, if you were going by Handsome Jack's definition._

_I was just an average guy who lived on Pandora._

_I had heard about the legends of the Vault the same as any one else, but I wasn't really that interested in them._

_I fell in love, although I can't even remember her name at this point._

_All I know is that she existed, and I cared about her deeply._

_We created a child._

_Tina._

_I … I didn't even recognize her when we first saw her._

_It was when we got to the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve, when we listened to the tape of Tina's escape._

_That was when I was given a small glimpse into my forgotten memories._

_I had decided to become a Vault Hunter after the first Vault was discovered._

_My wife, who I think was also pretty adventurous, went along with me._

_Tina came with us as well._

_We went with Hyperion Vault Hunter program, which I now know to be a load of crap._

_Jack was more creative back then._

_He didn't simply blow us up._

_He shipped us out for experimentation._

_They gave us all numbers, then put us in a pit full of skags._

_She gave Tina a grenade to escape._

_I was also there, also getting torn apart._

_Then..._

_...Then she died._

_Father and daughter, both watching someone we love get torn apart by vicious animals._

_I think the worst part is that Tina and i are the only people who would be able to honor her memory, and look at the two of us._

_Tina ran away, her cries, or laughter, carried through the wind._

_I think it was the combination of watching my wife get torn apart, the unimaginable pain, and the noise of my daughter's mind breaking._

_I think that's what caused me to snap._

_Caused my mind to split in two._

_I think that was where this all began._

_This is where things get a little blurry._

_The next thing I knew, I was in a pit full of dead skags, covered in blood._

_Hyperion was intrigued by someone who could do that, and brought me down for more testing._

_Little did they know (or maybe they knew perfectly well), they were giving power to my other side._

_The other Raiders found out about my relationship with Tina after a raid on the Preservation._

_They found a chart that had Tina's name and number on it._

_As well as the number of her mother. _

_My number was originally in-between theirs, but Hyperion took it out to make me a secret project._

_I tried my hardest to communicate with them who I was._

_Maya...Maya eventually got the message when I slammed my hand, which had my number on it, between the other two numbers, while I screamed "WHO'S YOUR DADDY?"_

_They got the message._

_I didn't even have to tell them not to tell Tina._

_It was after we got those fake Hyperion moon base codes._

_Tina was still torn up about Roland._

_Roland...I wish i could have thanked him._

_He deserved better._

_The last thing Tina needed was to find out her father was...whatever I am._

_I had great friends._

_Friends who are on their way to kill me._

_I just hope I don't kill any of them._

_I...can feel myself slipping away..._

_...Must be losing even more control._

_...Didn't think I had any left..._

_...Tina...Maya...I'm sorry..._

* * *

In case any of you are wondering why there are some depressing themes in this story, there are two reasons:

1. I like sad/funny stuff.

2. It copies the tone of the actual game: It can be silly, but also serious.

I've touched upon comedy and tragedy so far in the story, so you'll be happy to know that, in the next few chapters, I will be trying action! Wish me luck!

Also, i really want to find some sort of cover image for this story. if anyone has any ideas, let me know!


	10. The Peak pt1

_Alright! This is what you might have waited for! The big moment!_

_In celebration of reaching chapter 10 and around 2000 views, I am making this week "Peak week!"_

_Today! Wednesday! Friday! New chapters! The three parts of The Peak!_

_I don't own Borderlands!_

* * *

Terramorphus Peak was, obviously, not accessible by car. Luckily, the Raiders had commandeered Buzzards for the Moon Base invasion a few months back. However, the Moon Base codes turned out to be a trap. Long story short, the Raiders managed to get away with their lives and their ships.

There were three Buzzards heading toward the Hyperion ship crashed on the Peak. One held Salvador. The next held Gaige and Maya. The third one, and the one we shall be focusing on, held Axton, who was piloting his craft, and Claptrap, who was manning the turret.

They flew in silence, which surprised Axton. He was expecting to have his ear talked off since he agreed to fly with Claptrap. However, Claptrap appeared to be thinking about something in silence.

Axton knew he was going to regret it, but he was curious about what was on the former robot's mind.

"SO," he shouted over the engines "PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS?"

"WHAT?" Claptrap shouted back.

"I SAID PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS!"

"OH! NO THANK YOU! DON'T NEED A PENNY!"

"WHA-? NO! IT'S A SAYING! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT?"

"OH!" Claptrap was silent for a few seconds. "CAN I ASK YOU A QUESTION?"

"GO FOR IT, KID!"

"IS TANNIS HOT?"

"WHAT?"

"IS TANNIS HOT?!"

"THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT! I GUESS SHE'S PRETTY, BUT NOT REALLY MY TYPE! WHY DO YOU ASK?" Axton smirked at the other man. "GOT EYES FOR HER?"

"NO! MY EYES ARE MINE!"

"NO! THAT'S ALSO A SAYING! DO YOU THINK SHE'S HOT? THAT'S WHAT I'M ASKING!

"OH! I GUESS I DO! I'M NOT REALLY THAT SURE! SHOULD I GO FOR IT?"

"WHY NOT? I THINK IT'D BE CUTE! WORD OF ADVICE, THOUGH: BE CAREFUL STICKING IT IN THE CRAZY!"

"WHAT?"

"I SAID BE CAREFUL STICKING IT IN THE CRAZY!"

"WHAT ABOUT THE CRAZY?!"

"BE CAREFUL STICKING IT IN THE CRAZY!"

"What the hell are you guys talking about?"

Axton and Claptrap didn't realize that they had already landed on the peak and had turned off the engines. The other three Vault Hunters had only heard the last thing Axton had said- or rather, shouted. They were looking at the two questioningly.

"...Never mind that. We're here."

* * *

"Well..."

"Wow."

"In hindsight, I don't know why I thought Krieg would lock the door." Axton said, as the four Vault Hunters and one former robot looked at the door that had been torn off of it's hinges.

"...I could totally have unlocked that. Just for the record." Claptrap felt he needed to add.

"Got it." Axton said. "Now just wait out here till we're...done."

"Why can't I help you fight? I've fought before!"

"Have you met Krieg?" Sal said. "He would use your boney ass as a tooth pick!"

Claptrap was about to reply, then thought about it, then sighed dejectedly. Gaige looked at him with pity, then realized something.

"...Oh!" She suddenly said. "You can keep watch for us! In case more bandits show up!"

"...Really?" Claptrap said, a hopeful look appearing on his face.

"Yeah! It's totally important!" She said. The other Vault Hunters looked at her, then simply shrugged and began to gear up.

Claptrap smiled an idiotic smile and grabbed the shotgun from his back. "Alright! Count on me! I'm the scientific marvel of unlocking stuff and watching stuff!"

"...Sure, why not?" Axton said, before turning to the rest of his team. "Alright, so I'll take point. Maya, you stick to the center, focus on support. Gaige, stick to the rear with Deathtrap. Everybody make sure to non-elemental, high damage weapons. Krieg gets stronger the more he takes damage, so just take big chunks at a time, rather then slowly chipping away. Sal, you-"

"GUUUUUUUUNNNNNZURRRRKKEERRRRRR!" Salvador shouted as he charged into the ship, holding two machine guns in his hands.

Axton and the two women looked into the ship that their teammate had just charged into. Claptrap was busy fiddling with his shield.

"...I don't know what I was expecting." Axton said. "Alright! New plan! Don't die! Roll out!" He and the other Vault Hunters charged into the ship.

Claptrap simply looked into the ship, then leaned against it, shotgun in hand.

"They need me so hard!"

* * *

The three Vault Hunters finally caught up to their short friend, just as he was about to enter the hold of the ship. It was a huge ship, so large it was leaning off of the Peak. They had barely crossed the half of the ship at that point.

"Alright, here goes nothing!" Axton said. The Vault Hunters, in one solid group, ran into the hold.

They were firing shortly after.

The ship was literally filled to the brim with Bandits of every kind. Psychos to Nomads to Golithes. Any kind of bandit you could think of.

And all of them were gunning for the Vault Hunters.

Axton deployed his turret and began to fire his assault rifle. The turret took care of some of the bandits heading his way, while slagging the ones that got through.

Two bandits managed to get close enough to attack him. One threw a punch, but the commando caught the fist between his arm and the rifle. He threw the bandit over his head while whacking the other bandit with the butt of his rifle. He spun the rifle in his hand, so the barrel was facing the bandit who was still standing, dazed as he was. He fired a shot, killing the standing bandit instantly. Using the force of the kickback, Axton plunged the butt of the rifle into the other bandit's head, killing him instantly. He whacked him again for good measure. He then turned his attention back to the crowd of bandits attacking him.

Gaige was running through the crowd, shotgun in one hand. She was shooting at some bandits while punching others with her robot fist. Her shotgun blasts were starting to become less accurate, but they were also becoming more damaging with each landed hit.

"BOW BEFORE YOUR NEW QUEEN!" She shouted, with an somewhat crazed look in her eyes. She grabbed the head of one midget near her with her robot hand and swung him around, whacking other bandits around her down.

Maya glanced over at the younger girl and sighed.

"She hasn't even taken out the flying death robot yet." She muttered, before turning over to the bandit hoard

Maya phase-locked an explosive barrel. She moved the barrel through the room, picking up bandits in it's pull. Eventually she had quite a large ball moving around. The other Vault Hunters were diverting their fire toward the ball in order to kill some of the bandits. Bandits who were not in the ball were also firing at it, not knowing that they were hurting their comrades. Maya closed her open palm, making the ball tighten. The explosive barrel in the center of it exploded, sending bandits around the room.

Salvador was shooting into the crowd with two machine guns. Two rampaging Golithes were heading toward him from two different sides. Salvador switched to two rocket launchers and fired at the two monsters. They both went flying back into the crowd, taking bandits with them as they went.

Salvador laughed with glee as he punched another bandit in the face.

"THIS IS AWESOME!"

* * *

Claptrap was leaning against the ship, faintly hearing the gunfire.

"Man, sounds awesome in there!" he said, "Well, good thing I'm on watch! If a bandit came in through this way, it might surprise them!"

"THEY CAN HANDLE THEMSELVES."

Claptrap jumped up in surprise "Who the hell was that?!" he shouted, firing his shotgun into the air.

"I'M YOUR SHIELD, 1340." Claptrap looked down. Sure enough, his shield was emitting the sound.

"Oh...I think I remember you!" Claptrap said. "Yeah! You were that AI core that decided to help the Vault Hunters!"

"AFTER TRYING TO KILL THEM."

"Yeah, but when hasn't an AI tried to kill the Vault Hunters?"

"GOOD POINT."

"So why were you just in the armory?"

"THEY MADE ME A SHIELD." 1340 said. "THEN THEY GOT A BETTER SHIELD. CIRCLE OF LIFE."

"Well," Claptrap said, "now you get to live a cushy life in the armory!"

"IT IS ROBOT HELL." the AI said. "IT IS DARK. IT WAS TIGHT. I WAS PLACED NEXT TO THE BANE, WHO IS VERY VOCAL ON IT'S POLITICAL VIEWS. NOW I'M STUCK WORKING FOR SOME EXPENDABLE MORON."

Claptrap thought for a moment, then realized he had been insulted.

"Hey! I'm not expendable!"

* * *

_This chapter ends on a bit of a weird note. I wanted the chapters to be divided pretty well, so the cut off point of this chapter, the point that would be a better cliff hanger, is in the next chapter. Still, it introduces the idea, and you just have to wait a day for the next chapter._

_Also, I just tried my hand at combat. Writing Zero out of the story was a bad idea now that i think about it. I've been thinking about how i planned on using him, and the idea has evolved into something better than I had originally planned. Not to spoil anything, but i have bigger plans for him now._

_See you on Wednesday!_

_Please Review!_


	11. The Peak pt 2

_Welcome back! We are right in the middle of Peak Week! Hump day!_

_Don't own Borderlands!_

* * *

The fighting continued as described beforehand. Rest assure there were many other insane moves preformed by the Vault Hunters, but to describe all of them now would soil your enjoyment of the rest of your boring life.

Suddenly, they heard something echo through the ship.

"I CAN RIDE MY MEAT BIKE WITH NO HANDLEBARS!"

"Axton!" Maya shouted. "That's-"

"Yeah!" He shouted back. "He's on the bridge! Sal!" He called over to the Gunzurker. "Do you think you can handle the rest of these guys? Don't want any surprise guests during the fight!"

"Yeah, I think I'll stick to crowd control! Things look like they're gonna get tense in there, and I'd prefer to just be blasting dudes!" Salvador replied, punching a bandit's head off.

"Where the hell did all these guys come from?" Gaige asked, as she summoned Deathtrap and hoped on his back.

"I think they see Kreig as an alpha or something." Maya replied, before placing a hand on a bandit's head and frying his brains out.

Axton, Maya, and Gaige regrouped near the exit of the hold, before delving deeper into the ship.

Meanwhile, Salvador moved to higher ground, and pulled out two rocket launchers.

"COMER DE FUEGO, MALDITOS!" He shouted as he fired into the thinning crowd of bandits.

The explosion was larger than Sal anticipated. It killed a large amount of bandits, but it also violently shook the entire ship. Salvador managed to barely keep his footing as the ship slightly tilted.

_~hiss~_

**Gaige: **_Sheesh! Easy with the explosives, Sal! Someone might get hurt!_

**Salvador: **_That's the idea!_

_~hiss~_

Still, Salvador took Gaige's comment to heart and decided to switch to duel machine guns.

Not as flashy, but still pretty fun.

* * *

"YOU ARE CORRECT. YOU ARE NOT EXPENDABLE." 1340 said.

"Really?" Claptrap asked.

"YOU ARE SOME KIND OF NEGATIVE FORCE. YOU WOULD MAKE IT MORE LIKELY FOR TEAMMATES TO BE KILLED."

"No way! They think I'm capable!"

"THEN WHY DO YOU THINK THEY STUCK YOU OUT HERE?"

"For...For guard duty."

"DO YOU REALLY THINK THE ALL POWERFUL VAULT HUNTERS ARE AFRAID OF A SMALL BANDIT SNEAKING UP ON THEM?"

"You don't know that! You're just a stupid robot!"

"YOU WERE THE STUPIDEST ROBOT!"

"Well, now I'm human so...Wait...I-"

Claptrap thought was cut off by a large boom. The wall of the ship he was leaning on began the recede behind him.

The ship behind him began turning a little. It was not a full rotation, maybe about 25 degrees.

It was, however, enough of a turn to show the pit that it was covering.

A large enough gap for Claptrap to fall into.

Which, inevitably, he did.

"CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP!" Claptrap, along with his shield, shouted, as they fell into the deep hole.

* * *

The three Vault Hunters managed to make their way to the bridge. The journey was slightly slowed down by the tilting of the ship, but they managed to trek through the slanted hallways.

The sight of the bridge was disturbing.

There were torn up body parts all over the blood coated room. The freshness of the corpses varied from those who died in the crash to those who were recently torn up by the room's inhabitant.

In the center of it all, standing between two lit torches by large window of the ship, was Krieg.

The former Vault Hunter was outfitted differently then when he left Sanctuary. His chest was still as bare as ever, but he held a large shield in one hand. The shield had two long dead, full-grown Psychos on it. In the other hand, Krieg held a Gatling gun. His signature Saw Blade was holstered on his back. He wore a new helmet. In fact, it was Captain Flynt's helmet. God only know where he got it.

Krieg turned his masked head over the visitors to his domain. He studied them, his face unreadable, although that was probably due to the helmet.

Maya lowered her SMG. "Krieg?" She said as she walked forward a few steps.

"Careful, Maya..." Axton said, keeping his gun trained on his former friend.

Krieg focused on Maya, his expression still unreadable. He was silent for a few seconds...

...Before screaming, "I'D RATHER EAT RANDY!" and firing his mini-gun

Maya felt Axton tackle her to the ground. They both rolled into cover.

"Sorry bout that, Maya."

"No. That was my fault. Just thought..."

"I don't mean to butt into the start of an emotion conversation," Gaige butted in, "but we're being fired on by a mad man with a gun!"

"Right!" Axton said. "Gaige, do what you can with Deathtrap! When he's down, don't bother firing on Krieg! You won't cause enough damage! Maya, stick to support! Rule of thumb is not to hurt Krieg while he's fighting someone. He's at his strongest when he's taking damage, so don't tip the scale in his favor!"

"What about you?" Maya asked.

"That'll become obvious later! Now send in the robot!"

Gaige dove ahead into better cover, behind a blown-out counsel She summoned Deathtrap, who flew toward Krieg.

The fault of the one-handed Gatling gun was that the accuracy was terrible. So even as the robot approached him, Krieg was unable to land any hits on him.

Krieg decided to toss the gun away to punch the robot with his free hand.

"THE POP SECRET SHALL BE KNOWN TO ALL!"

_~hiss~_

**Tiny Tina: **_"__Pop secret?"..._

_Dee dee do, dee dee dee do_

**_Tiny Tina: _**_Is Krieg my real dad?_

**_Moxxi: _**_Sh*t!_

_~hiss~_

After punching the robot, Krieg bashed Deathtrap with his shield, nearly crushing the robot. However, Gaige made the robot out of tough stuff. He picked himself up and clawed at the psycho. Krieg grabbed one of his hands and caught the other with his shield. Deathtrap fired his laser at Krieg's helmet, making it glow molten red.

Krieg howled as he clawed at the helmet. Deathtrap took the opportunity to attack his shielded arm, causing him to drop the shield. Krieg stumbled backwards.

Deathtrap turned toward his summoner. Gaige gave him a thumbs up. The robot returned the expression.

"Why did it know to do that?" Maya asked.

"I'm experimenting with AI for Deathtrap." the mecromancer replied. "Although it is kinda creepy, now that I think about it. And the thing with Claptrap is making me reconsider my ideas on AI. Also, should we be concerned about that ECHOcast?"

"Not my kid, not my problem." Axton replied.

"Yeah, but-"

"GAIGE! DEATHTRAP! LOOK OUT!" Maya screamed.

"Wha-" Gaige turned over to her robot, only for her eyes to widen in horror.

Deathtrap was still facing her, so he did not see Krieg behind him until he sensed the hum of his saw blade.

Krieg slammed the safe end of the blade, the side that kept the wielder from getting cut, into the robot. The blade smashed the robot. The safe cover broke off, and it switched to simply cutting him in half. Deathtrap fell to the ground, dismembered.

"ALCOHOL IS POISON!"

"MY BABY!" Gaige shouted, as she dismissed the remains of her robot.

"Stay out of the fight, Gaige!" Axton shouted, as he switched to a shotgun.

"Wait!" Maya said. "If I'm on support, and Gaige can't fight, whose gonna fight Krieg?"

"Like I said, it's pretty obvious." He loaded his shotgun and checked for his combat knife.

"Are you insane?! He'll crush you!"

"Who else?" Axton asked seriously. "Do you want me to put Gaige in danger? Or have Sal leave us open to a mass of bandits? Or would you rather me throw Claptrap at the problem, to his death?" he paused. "Don't answer that last one."

"Why not me?" Maya said. "I'm the one who accepted him! I'm the one who trusted him! I'm the one that thought he could change! I'm the one who...who..." She fell silent.

"That's exactly why it can't be you." Axton replied. "Now, shoot health bullets at me if I look like I'm suffering. Phase Lock him if you get the chance."

"...Got it."

"Alright." Axton got out of cover and approached the Psycho. "David, meet Goliath!" he muttered to himself.

* * *

Claptrap fell for about fifteen seconds before hitting the ground.

"...How am I not dead?" He asked nobody in particular as he got up.

"IT IS PANDORA'S GRAVITY." 1340 replied. "FALLS FROM CERTAIN DISTANCES ARE POSSIBLE WITHOUT TAKING DAMAGE."

"Oh." Claptrap said. "Cool!" He looked around. "Where are we?"

"WE APPEAR TO HAVE FALLEN INTO THE FORMER SANCTUARY OF THE TERRAMORPHUS."

"W-W-What?!" Claptrap stuttered. He looked around, clutching his shotgun, terrified.

"FORMER." The AI continued. "IT'S DEAD."

Claptrap sighed in relief. "Thank God! I didn't wanna fight it!"

"NO FALSE BRAVADO?"

"I know I couldn't take a Terramorphus! I'm not an idiot!"

"THAT'S A BIT OF A STRETCH."

"What's that-" Claptrap didn't finish his sentence. He caught sight of something that deepened the pit in his stomach

Eggs.

Giant eggs.

Three giant, probable-Terramorphus eggs.

"A-A-A-A-Are those..?"

"I WOULD ASSUME THEY ARE?"

Claptrap stood there, trembling. He whimpered a little as he stared at the eggs.

"WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF?"

"W-W-What?"

"THEY ARE NOT HATCHED YET. JUST EGGS."

"Oh." Claptrap whispered. He then suddenly regained his bravado. "Oh! Great! Right!" He suddenly reached into his pocket and pulled out the syringe Tannis had given him. Somehow, it had survived the fall. "I gotta stick this in that egg! For science!"

"THERE ARE SO MANY REASON WHY THAT IS A BAD IDEA."

"There are even more reasons why it is a great idea! Like science! Or the prospect of getting laid!" Claptrap told his shield excitedly, as he approached the egg.

Said egg was about the size of Brick. Claptrap knocked his fist on the egg, prepped the syringe and, bracing himself, slammed it into the egg...

...only for his fist to completely break the egg, shoving his arm completely through the egg.

Claptrap pulled out his arm, which was covered in a light layer of slime.

"What the...?" He pushed the egg to its side.

There was a hole on the bottom of the egg. The hole revealed the emptiness of the egg.

"Crap."

The ground being him exploded.

Three Terramorpi rose from the ground. They were not as large as the one the Vault Hunters had fought. Their combined mass would probably match that one.

They looked at Claptrap with hunger.

"PROTECT ME, SHIELD!" He shouted, as the three monsters dove into him.

"YOU'RE BONED."

**CRASH!**

**BIZZZ!**

**CRUNCH!**

* * *

_Now with better cliffhanger!_

_This segment was longer then I thought!_

_So the entire Tina/Krieg storyline might have all just lead up to that one Arrested Development reference. Because I'm a horrible person._

_Ya'll gotta wait till Friday!_

_Please Review!_


	12. The Peak pt 3

_Now it's Friday! Let's finish this! _

_Cards on the table, Peak Week is really fun to say!_

_Don't own Borderlands_

* * *

Axton approached Krieg.

Krieg was no longer wearing any of the armor he previously had. He was also missing his helmet, revealing his face, marred with scars and discolored patches. The look in his eyes was of pure detached insanity. He wore a deranged smile on his face.

He swung his blade at Axton, who barely dodged it in time..

"SAY HELLO TO THE MISSES FOR ME!"

Axton fired his shotgun at the psycho. However, the shots seemed to do nothing but encourage him. He tossed the gun aside

"What the hell are you doing?!" Maya shouted over to the commando.

"Gun wasn't working!" Axton shouted back, dodging another swing from Krieg as he pulled out his combat knife.

"You think cutting him will be any better?!"

"Sorry! Can't hear you over the buzz saw!" Axton slid under another swing, between Krieg's legs. He slashed at his legs. Krieg screamed at him.

"I WILL MAKE YOU HURT!"

"Yeah! Come on, Big guy!" Axton shout at the larger man.

"Why did we let a glory hound make the plans?" Gaige asked Maya.

"...This could end badly." Maya realized.

Krieg made a vertical strike at Axton. "WE UP ALL NIGHT TO GET LUCKY!"

Axton sidestepped the attack, propelled himself on to the shaft of the blade and jumped up with his combat knife.

Axton dug the knife into Krieg's chest.

All was silent for a second.

Krieg looked down at his bleeding chest...

...only to swing his blade at Axton, who barely had time to dodge the attack.

The blade hit Axton's face. It cut him right in the eye. The commando screamed in pain. Luckily, Maya fired a burst of healing bullets at the commando, numbing the pain and closing the wound.

Axton look at the psycho with what was now his one good eye. He had a nasty vertical scar cutting through his face.

"LAY YOUR WEARY HEAD TO REST!"

Krieg did another vertical slash like the one he did before. This time, instead of dodging it, Axton grabbed the handle. He grunted as the pushed against Krieg's force.

Suddenly, he felt the pressure weaken. Axton looked behind Krieg and saw that a phase-lock field had open up behind him. Not only did this lessen the force of Krieg's pushing, but it helped Axton push back.

Krieg was not smiling anymore. He had an enraged look on his face.

"DO IT! DO IT!" he shouted at the commando. Suddenly, his expression softened. "Please."

Axton felt the blade inch more toward his opponent and, with one final push, shoved the blade into Krieg's head.

The blade made contact, and another Vault Hunter died.

* * *

"I assume you guys don't want to talk about it or anything?" Salvador asked his friends as they exited the ship.

Maya and Gaige didn't look too beaten up. Axton, however, was cover in blood, some of it his own, some of it not. His face was bandaged up, but they were all pretty sure that he was not going to be able to see out of the damaged eye again.

Salvador was cooling off from the adrenaline rush of his fight with the bandits, so his mood did not match the somber one of his friends. He tried to keep himself quiet, but he was pretty wound up.

They were about to step off of the ship when they heard a voice say, "Watch out for the hole, guys! It looks like a long fall!"

They turned over and saw Claptrap sitting on the ground. His shirt was pretty torn up and he had a black eye.

"Claptrap! What the hell happened to you?" Salvador asked

"Oh, well, there was a bandit...who attacked me...and broke my shield...and almost got the upper hand?" he said, smiling nervously.

Maya raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Uhm, yeah!"

"Where's the body, then?" the siren asked.

"Oh...it fell down the hole..." Claptrap replied.

Maya's expression didn't falter, and she was about to ask another question when Axton cut in.

"Look, it's been a long day. How about we all just get back to base and save the twenty questions for later?"

Maya looked at her teammate. "Alright." she sighed, before glaring at Claptrap, who smiled sheepishly. "Gaige, fly yourself. Sal, take Claptrap. I'll fly Axton, since I don't think he should fly himself with his eye."

"Fair enough. Let's head out!" Axton said.

And so the Vault Hunter and their "friend" flew off back to Sanctuary

Little did the Vault Hunters know that, at the bottom of that hole, there were three torn up dead baby Terramorphi.

A small camera on the Hyperion ship that had a view of the carnage at the bottom of the hole blinked red.

* * *

_So end's this exciting week! I almost thought i would not be able to finish on time for Monday. It was really fun._

_The first Act is almost complete! After that there will be a small intermission that will lead up to Act II. And by intermission, i mean I'm gonna post a few tiny chapters to build up to act II. _

_Alright! See you next chapter!_

_Reviews are appreciated!_


	13. After Party

_I was getting kinda anxious to upload more chapters during the week, but I had already made Peak Week a thing, and decided to pace myself. I wrote all three parts by Monday, so, other than a one shot I wrote, I wrote no new chapters during the week. _

_Also, I just noticed that, in the summary of this story, I don't even mention that Claptrap is a human. Should I mention that, or is it better to leave it ambiguous?_

_I drop the f-bomb in this chapter, so watch out for that._

_Don't own Borderlands._

* * *

Sarah looked over the leaders of the Crimson Raiders over the video conference.

"I assume you personal matters have been dealt with?"

"Well, I put down a close friend and lost an eye in the process." Axton said. "So, yeah, went about as well as I expected."

Sarah eyed the commando, then sighed. "Very well then. I will tell you of what Vault must be contained on Pandora in a few days."

"Why don't you just tell us now?" Maya asked. "We don't have that much on our plate. We could just get it over with."

"You have other matters to deal with." Sarah replied. "Today you went on a mission which required plenty of emotional stress, and we don't need you to be burnt out while fighting one of the Vault Monsters. Also, according to your mission report, there are only three active Vault Hunters ready to fight. Am I correct?"

"I don't feel comfortable sending Gaige out with out Deathtrap, so yeah." Maya replied. They were all aware that Zero was still away.

"Speaking of Gaige, tell here there has been an unfortunate accident on Eden-5. In his estate, Mr. Maxwell Holloway, who was pressing charges on her for his daughter's murder, was found dead in his quarters. Nobody knows who did it. At this point, there are potentially hundreds of suspects." Sarah paused. "Gaige asked me before I left to-"

"Inform her of any developments in her case. Yeah, she told us, too." Lilith replied. She understood what Sarah was saying. Zero had completed his mission and was on his way back to Pandora. When he arrived, regardless of how much Gaige managed to repair Deathtrap, they would have at least four Vault Hunters ready to hunt Vaults.

"Just out of curiosity," Axton said, "How many Vaults are there? Here, on Pandora."

"I'm...We are not positive yet." Sarah said.

"What was that pause?" Axton asked.

"It's classified, that's what." She replied quickly.

"So, wait, you CLASSIFIED silence?"

"I understand you have had a stressful day today-"

"So you decided to give us a few days to sleep off having to KILL a friend of ours?!"

"I've seen you sleep of worse!" Sarah shouted. The room was silent for a few seconds. "I'm...I'm sorry. That was a low blow"

"We're undermanned." The commando said.

"What?"

"That's our problem." Axton said.

"What do you mean?" Lilith said. "We got plenty of Raiders."

"Yeah, _Raiders._" Axton said. "But how many people have you got hunting Vaults? 'Four?'" He said, using quotation marks.

"...Yes. I can see the issue. I'll look into it." Sarah said.

"Understood. Meeting dismissed." Axton said before walking out of the room.

"Axton..." Maya looked out the doorway. She turned back to the monitor. "Sorry about that."

"No problem. He had a good point though. I'll figure something out." Sarah replied. "I'll second his notion, though. I'll contact you again in a few days."

"Very well. Have a nice day, Commander." Maya replied. The screen went blank.

"...Do you think those two need to do it or...?" Lilith asked her fellow Siren.

"I really don't know." Maya replied. "Sarah doesn't seem to be the kind of person to let personal matters into her work. Axton on the other hand..."

"He's a big boy. He'll get over it." Lilith said. "What about you?"

"...I'm a big girl. I'll get over it." Maya said. "What about you?"

"Are you imitating me?"

"No, you just clearly just don't want to be here."

Lilith opened her mouth to reply, then thought about it and sighed. "That obvious?"

"You never really said anything during the meeting. ANY of the meetings."

"You and Axton have it covered. You're like me and Roland, but the roles are reversed." She said, chuckling to herself. "It's funny. The only reason I'm here is that Roland trusted me to lead the raiders. Turns out I'm not much of a leader without him."

"...That's not really funny."

"Yeah, I guess not." Lilith admitted. "You two seem to have everything covered, which is good." She was silent for a few seconds. "Well, goodnight." She said, and went to her room.

Maya looked over the other Siren. She then sighed to herself.

Everybody was pretty depressed after the mission that day.

* * *

_-Love you, dad!_

_You were a mistake._

_(Zipping sound. Footsteps. Someone sits down. Take a sip of something,)_

_Alright! So found out a few _fantastic_things today!One of the Vaults on the map is different from the rest. It seems to hold whatever the Eridians used to create the other vaults, as well as one of their creatures._

_Do you understand what this means?!_

_Why did I ask that? This is a recording. I might be losing it a tad. No big deal. I'm going to be powerful soon._

_Let me explain. There are certain Vaults that have corresponding genetic keys to them. These Vaults hold some of the most powerful creatures. These key switch between different people after death. There are six of them, and they grant the key person amazing powers. They only seem to go with one gender._

_Ever heard of something like that? Should have. They're Sirens!_

_This seventh Vault has similar readings to these Vaults, but no key._

_I have a theory about why this might be. I'll have to find more info though._

_Out._

* * *

"Do you understand what this means?" Tannis asked Claptrap, as she led him over to he couch.

"Well, he already did kinda explain it, so kinda."

"The connection between the Sirens and the Vaults! I've discovered it!"

"...Wait, you didn't discover it. Trappington did!" Claptrap said, gesturing over to the tape recorder.

"Yes, but he's dead, so I win!" She replied. "Rules are rules. "It's the principal of Finders Keepers, founded by the weepy losers!"

"I don't think that's-"

"Never mind what you think!" She replied, handing him a glass. "You got me the Thresher sample, so I can also scratch that off of my list! We are going to celebrate! You, me, and Clork," She gestured to the ceiling chair on the other side of the coffee table, "are going to drink this bottle of expensive wine!" She held up a red bottle of wine."I got it on the black market!"

"Cool!" Claptrap exclaimed. "Why?"

"Because, apparently, the normal thing to do after achieving a goal is to kill of brain cells with alcohol! Now here's a cup for all three of us!" She said, pouring into the the cup in front of her, the cup in Claptrap's hands, and a cup sitting on the chair. She held up her cup.

"Cheers!"

She and Claptrap clinked cups. They both moved their cups over to the one on Clork and clinked it as well.

* * *

The bottle was almost empty, and Clork was still on his first cup.

"And and and so I said," Claptrap drunkenly stammered, " 'hey, Bandits! Chill out!'"

Tannis exploded with laughter. "And then what?"

"No then what. That's the story!"

"Ha!" She laughed again. "...Can I tell you something?"

"Wha?"

"Nonono, it's secret! You gots to promise not to tell anyone! Not even the Vault Hun...Hunter-ers."

"You have my...complete... and utter..._silence."_ Claptrap whispered.

Tannis laughed again, before getting drunkenly serious. "Look, just look...Vending Machines..."

"What?"

"They gonna kill us."

Claptrap laughed. "I knew those bastards were up to something!"

"They hunt skags and fly! With jets!" She continued, waving her hands around. "They drop grenades and explosions from the sky and say lewd things about your mothers!"

"Ha! I don't have a mother!" Claptrap collapsed in a fit of giggles."

"Hey! I am serious!"

"Relax, babe!" Claptrap said, standing up. "I'm...I'm invincible!" He pounded his chest

Tannis once again laughed. "No you not!"

"I am too!" He replied. "Come on! Shoot me in the face!"

"Do you want it?" She said jokingly.

"NEED IT!" He shouted. "GOTTA HAVE IT!"

"Not the knee?"

"FACE!"

"Not the arm?"

"FACE!"

"Spine?"

"FACE!" he shouted, before howling in laughter and collapsing next to Tannis, who was also laughing.

They were both suddenly silent. They stared at each other. To them, it was as if the rest of the room, no, the rest of the world had disappeared, leaving only the person in front of them. That person who, at the moment, seemed so amazing, and so very close.

And then they fucked.

* * *

_I like to imagine the last few sentences being read out loud by Hammerlock, next to a burning fire, wearing a robe and a fez. Nice and classy._

_Also, I got Claptrap drunk and laid in one chapter. So that's nice._

_I wasn't that sure how I wanted to start this chapter, but the end of it was an idea I had for a while. _

_I know how I want the next chapter will go, so look forward to that soon._

_Leave a review!_


	14. The Morning Nothing Bad Happened

_So it's been about a month since I posted four chapter in one week._

_That should have been enough to hold you over._

_Don't own Borderlands._

* * *

The previous day's mission was a somber one, and that somber tone had spread throughout the streets of Sanctuary In the moment of loss and sacrifice, everybody was thinking about the people they had lost to the unforgiving planet below them.

The mood in the flying city was somber.

Except for the mood of one man.

Claptrap was skipping down the streets of Sanctuary He stopped to make small talk with whoever he crossed paths with, as he usually did. However, the conversations went differently then they usually did.

"Nice pants!"

"Uh...Than-"

"I GOT LAID! WOO!"

Usually, people got annoyed with him by the time he got to the beat-boxing, but this was a special morning, full of people who did not have any time for his crap.

Claptrap decided to get ahead on his schedule find his Vault Hunting friends.

Along the way, he passed by Marcus's shop. There was a bit of a scene happening there. Torgue, Moxxi, Marcus, and Toby were all surrounding the door of the shop.

"Tina! Open the door!" Moxxi shouted.

"No!" The young girl shouted from the other side.

"TINA." Torgue said. "I HAVE A MOUNTIAN OF EXPLOSIVES IN THE CENTER OF AN OLD HYPERION POST. DO YOU WANT TO BLOW IT UP?"

"No! You're just gonna die! Like Roland and Krieg!"

"Torgue!" Moxxi said. "You can't solve every problem with explosives! That's not how parenting works!"

"BUT THAT'S ALL I'VE BEEN DOING SO FAR!"

"Well, this situation is a bit more...fragile"

"...SO BUNKERS AND BADASSES THEN?"

"No! This is far more complicated!"

"Not to interrupt your marital dispute," Marcus said, "but I do need to open shop soon."

Toby looked between the adults. "Are none of you concerned about the fact that she is locked in a room that is basically an armory?"

"Shut up, Toby." Said Marcus.

Toby sighed and walked away from his adoptive father and the bickering parents of his young friend.

He walked by Claptrap. "Hi, Mr. Trap! What happened to your shirt?"

"Oh, it got all torn up yesterday, so I'm just going sleeveless to show off my gun!"

"Oh. So are you just watching this or are you gonna help them?"

"Not my kid, not my problem!" Claptrap replied, before smiling his now signature stupid grin. "I got LAID!"

"Oh." Toby said, before remembering his sex ed class with the grown man. "Now, when you say 'laid'..."

"The human way! Plenty of fluids with no electricity! Well, that's not entirely true."

"Ew. I'm gonna go now, Mr. Trap, before you break a law." Toby said, continuing on his way. Claptrap looked at the boy, shrugged, and continued on his own way. He was passing by Zed's when he saw the people he was looking for.

The four Vault Hunters on Sanctuary were waiting outside of Zed's clinic. Scooter was there as well, although he was in a vivid conversation with Gaige. The two of them seemed to be making their way toward his garage. Claptrap overheard a little of their conversation.

"Now, I'm just saying, y'all should makem transform."

"Why would I need to do that? I can ride Deathtrap well enough on my own."

"I'm just saying, never know when y'all need a car."

"I thought that was what you were for." A pause. "Hold on."

"What?"

"Why not just do it the other way around? Make the cars turn into robots!"

"...CATCH-A-MULTIPURPOUS-KILLING-MACHINE!" Scooter shouted. "We are getting right on that!"

"_After_ we fix Deathtrap." Gaige said.

" 'Course." Scotter said. Their conversation continued out of Claptrap's hearing range.

Claptrap approached the other two Vault Hunters. "Hey, guys! Guess what?"

"You had sex?" Maya replied, in a bored tone.

"I HAD-...Yes." He replied, surprised. "How did you guys know?"

"Sanctuary's not that large." Salvador replied. "We heard you screaming it earlier. Not sure how Tannis would feel about that."

"Oh. That makes sense." Claptrap said. He was silent for a few seconds, before realizing something. "Wait a second! How did you guys know it was Tannis? Did Axton tell you?"

"No." Maya said. "She's the only one that puts up with you." As Maya spoke, Axton exited Zed's clinic, with Zed following behind him.

"So, how do I look?" The commando asked. Axton had a vertical scar across his left eye. He was wearing an eyepatch across the injured eye.

"Kinda stupid." Salvador replied.

Axton groaned in response. He then turned to Claptrap. "Anyway, heard about you and Tannis. Congrats, I guess. You've had a dick about two weeks and you've already used it. That's pretty fast, statistically"

"Much as I would love to talk about Claptrap's sex life," Maya said, "we should probably get going. There's something wrong with the com tower, but we're getting a lot of message indicators"

Zed walked in front of the group. "Actually, I think we should have a small gathering. Everybody in town is down in the dumps. No offense, Claptrap." The "doctor" directed to the young man.

"None taken!" He replied positively, ignoring the small pit that formed in his stomach

"You mean like a party?" Axton asked.

"I was thinking more a rave." Zed replied, as the group came the edge of the city, looking over the sky. "It's like a party, but with more drugs! Now, I took the liberty of taking a medical crapton of painkillers an hour ago to get the party started!"

"Aren't those for the patients?" Maya asked.

"Didn't you just work on Axton?" Salvador added.

"All he did was look at me and put the eyepatch on."

"You were in there for 45 minutes.."

"He couldn't find the eyepatch."

"But he could have-"

**BANG!**

A gunshot rang throughout the entire city. It was loud enough to bring every citizen to a halt.

"What happened?! Who was shot?!" Zed asked.

Nobody responded. They all had a horrified look on their faces.

Claptrap and the Vault Hunters were all staring at the large, bloody hole in the medic's stomach

Zed followed their eyes to his gut. He stared at the hole, before bringing his hand down to touch the blood. He raised his blood-soaked finger up to his face, to get a better look at it.

"Huh."

Dr. Zed fell to the ground, dead.

The Vault Hunters were silent, stunned by the sudden death of their friend.

"Is he OK?! He had all those pain meds! He might be!"

Then Claptrap said something stupid.

"Claptrap, you dumbass!" Maya shouted. "That's not how pain meds work! We have to figure out who shot Zed!"

"Crap!" Sal cursed. "The only medic in town was killed in a random shooting! Axton, think you can get your ex to...Axton?" The gunzurker looked over to the commando, who was staring out over empty space ahead of them. "What's up?"

"...That attack wasn't random!" Said Axton, pulling out his assault rifle. "We're under attack!"

"Wha-"

As if out of nowhere, a giant ship appeared next to Sanctuary Smaller ships began firing out of the larger ship. Screams began to erupt from around the city. However, the attacker had yet to fire another shot onto the city.

The main thing the Vault Hunters noticed, however, was that the giant ship was the same Hyperion ship they had hunted Krieg on the other day.

The smaller ships transformed into robots, specificity Hyperion loaders. They floated around the city, guns aimed at the streets. Many of Sanctuary's less combat ready citizens had evacuated into the buildings of the city. The Crimson Raiders all had their guns trained on the robots.

The Vault Hunters had their weapons drawn and aimed at the ship. Claptrap, realizing that he had left his shotgun at Tannis's, decided t op instead to run to Scooter's nearby garage. However, just as he was about to open the door, Gaige opened it from her side. The young girl looked at Claptrap.

"Claptrap, what's going on?!"

"Uh...we're under attack!"

"Oh crap!...What are you doing?"

"Oh! Well...I...I-I didn't have a weapon!" the former robot replied.  
"Oh. You use a shotgun, right?" The mecromancer asked. "Here's one of my spare." She conjured up a shotgun and gave it to the man.

"Thanks...I guess..." Claptrap said, as he followed the girl over to the other Vault Hunters.

"What's with Hyperion?!" Maya exclaimed. "I thought Blake had all this covered!"

"You gave Hyperion to Blake?! No wonder these bots were so eager to join me!" A voice said over the ship loudspeaker.

"No..."

"It can't be..."

"Hey kiddos! Handsome Jack here!"

* * *

_I'm going to try to close up this act by the end of the summer, so I would say around...4 or 5 more chapters. I'm not gonna start a new story for the second act, but I am going to work on another, shorter story as well as write a few small things setting up for the second half._

_I actually thought that the last chapter would have been a good place to leave things for a break. I closed up a lot of plot lines and it seemed like a conclusion. The next few chapters are going to drop a lot of drama bombs, and, if I was able to spread it out across a few other chapters, I would use them as cliffhangers. It took a while to write this chapter because I was dead set on having it start with Tannis waking up with Claptrap in her bed. _

_Funny idea, but it wasn't working._

_See you all, soon!_

_Reviews are appreciated!_


	15. The One You Saw Coming

_Alright, so I wrote down this entire exchange, but decided to split it into two different chapters. I'm worried it might seem too much like chapter 4, which got a little long, but this will hopefully be different. It also might get confusing. Just stick with me on this._

_Don't own Borderlands._

* * *

"Hey, kiddos! Handsome Jack here!"

The Vault Hunters stood in silent shock, in contrast to the terrified screams that filled the rest of the city.

Gaige spoke up. "But how? He's-"

"Dead?" Jack interjected. "Of course I was. But you gotta remember one thing: I'm the hero of this story, and the hero always finds a way!"

"You were never the hero, Jack!" Axton shouted to the ship. "And that story is over! You lost!"

"Here's the thing about that: If I had won, it would have been a pretty crappy story." Jack said, the condescending tone clear in his voice. "The story would have just been me kicking your asses. But where's the content? The suspense? In order for the hero to win, they have to lose first! That's how all the story's go!"

"Now you're all probably wondering, 'How did he pull it off?' Well, it's pretty obvio-"

Just then, at what could possible be the worst time, Claptrap found his voice, along with his false bravado.

"Jack! You bastard!" The former robot shouted. "I knew you would come hunt me down!"

"Claptrap, shut up!" Maya said. "You're gonna get yourself killed!"

"That never stopped me before!"

"But you're human now! That means you can't be fixed!"

"Yeah, I know that, but it still stands!" Claptrap turned back to the ship. "You've been trying to end my product line for years, Jack! But now you can't end my line, because I, Claptrap: Scientific Marvel of Opening Doors and Legs, am human! You can't end my line cause it doesn't exist anymore! Now, come down here, Jack, and face me, you coward!"

It was then Handsome Jack did something he never really did before.

He addressed Claptrap.

"Well, Well, Well. If it isn't the man of the hour!"

"You were expecting me?" Claptrap said, surprised. "Y-You were expecting me?" He repeated, the horror of the statement sinking in. "Of course you were expecting ME!" He shouted in his false bravado, to save face.

Suddenly, two drones flew out of the ship. The flew right toward Claptrap and fired energy beams at his arms. Claptrap yelped in surprise The beams grabbed his arms and dragged him into the air. The Vault Hunters, realizing that they should protect Claptrap if Jack wanted him so much, fired at the droid, but to no avail. Claptrap was suspended in the air, hi feet kicking to no avail.

"Oh, where to start?" Jack said to the former robot. "I'm not surprised you don't remember anything, but they did kinda screw you over, Trappington."

Claptrap looked at the ship, surprised.

"Trappington? You mean that probably crazy Hyperion scientist guy?"

"Yup. Also, you, in a way." Jack replied. "Although I'm pretty sure you would have to be crazy or a dumbass to not make a connection between Clyde Trappington and Claptrap!"

Claptrap digested this information before responding.

"Hey! I'm not crazy!"

"Wait a second." Axton said. "Who's Clyde Trappington and what does he have to do with this?"

"So, your crazy scientist girlfriend didn't share with the other?" Jack said.

"...Oh, so when you said 'crazy or a dumbass-"

"Don't explain the joke." Jack said. "Give dumbass a shock. See if that shuts him up."

Claptrap opened his mouth in protest, but instead screamed as electricity was forced through him. He was shocked for a few seconds before it stopped. He could taste a burning in his mouth and his arms had a bit of a glow to them.

"Now, I guess it's time for story time at gun point!" Jack continued. "Just like Nana used to do it! Ok, so Trappington was some scientist Hyperion sent to Pandora to record all the wildlife, like your pal, Gay Hammercock."

"That's just kinda narrow-minded." Salvador commented.

"...You know what? I thought it would be easy to make up a name, but it wasn't, so get off my ass!" Jack said, firing a warning rocket near the Vault Hunters. It exploded, putting the fighters on guard. "Now, shut up as I tell my story!"

"So, Trappington filed all his info pretty fast, so Hyperion took the info. Just left him and his crew here, though. Didn't see the point in funding a return trip, and I agreed with them. He went native pretty fast, killing people for fun. Might have been a bit of a cannibal"

"However, I maintained contact with Trappington after he made some discoveries on the Vaults. I told him to stay quiet about his Vault discoveries, and told the bosses he was becoming pretty knowledgeable about Pandora's landscape They decided to upload his brain as a guide to Pandora. Coincidentally, I needed someone to test out the mind upload program to make sure it was safe to use."

"He had plans that involved the Vault, but you can just hear that for yourselves."

The audio cut Jack out, replacing it with the following echo-log.

* * *

_So Hyperion has a shitty mind upload program._

_They want my whole mind. And when they extract it, I'll physically die._

_This would usually be OK, but I need my mind for stuff._

_Luckily, using my Hyperion contact, I've found a way to keep my mind with me in order to fulfill my plan. _

_You see, he gave me a device that would direct my uploaded brain wherever I wanted it to be. _

_I'm going to bring it to the Vault we found today, and then let Hyperion upload my brain into it. _

_Its going to take a few days, but once it's complete, nothing will ruin my plan!_

* * *

Jack's voice returned. "So I thought, 'Why would someone be OK with dying just for their mind to become some sort of guide?' I decided to intercept his plan with a plan of my own. So I- HOMO ROBO BRITO!" Jack suddenly shouted. "That's what I should have used!"

"Not much better."

"Do I have any say in this?" Hammerlock piped in.

"No. Shut up. As I was saying, I rerouted his beacon to my mind, rather then his. His went to Hyperion to be broken down, copied, divided and mass-produced, while mine was _supposed _to go into whatever he was planning."

"So, what you're saying is Claptrap is Clyde Trappington? This is a bit hard to follow." Axton asked.

"If Trappington was so smart, how did he become...Claptrap?" Gaige asked.

"WHY ARE YOU TALKING AND NOT KILLING US?" Torgue asked.

"Oh, Mr. Torgue. Didn't see you there, buddy!" Jack said, with a surprisingly optimistic ton in his voice. "Shame you're hanging out with these bandits, otherwise I would assimilate you into my forces. Alive." Jack added.

"Wait, you guys are friends?" Moxxi asked.

"I just wanna clarify that we are all listening to the conversation through our ECHO-devices." Scotter said. "Ya know, case anyone was wondering..."

"Were's Sal going?" Gaige whispered to Maya. The Gunzurker had snuck off during Jack's story.

"Not sure. Said he was gonna surprise them."

"WE WERE GOLF PALS. NOT FRIENDS."

"Yeah. None of the other company heads found the entertainment in the sport of asteroid golf. Which is as FREAKING AWESOME as it sounds!" Jack said.

Claptrap found his voice again and decided to comment on what was apparently his origin story.

"Well, even though I might have been some asshole before, now I'm a different man! Who never did anything to betray his friends!"

Jack began to laugh. "Oh, man! This is gonna be more fun then I thought! You see, you screwed me over, Trappington. I don't know how, but you did. That human body should have been mine! I was supposed to go into the body, but you had it set somehow so that you were the only one that could use it. But, I've found an alternative."

The door of the ship began to open.

"You know what they say..."

In the darkness, a red light mimicked a face, eyes, mouth, even nose. As Jack spoke, it moved.

"...One man's trash..."

The face moved into the light and revealed...

Claptrap.

His old body, that is.

"Is another man's treasure."

* * *

_Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, Jack-Trap!_

_You might have a few questions, but just wait till tomorrow, when i post the second half of this._

_Also, the chapter title is in reference to the Clyde Trappington storyline, which was pretty obvious. I didn't expect you guys to predict Jack-trap._

_See you all tomorrow!_

_Reviews are appreciated!_


	16. Third Time's the Charm

_Now back to your regularly scheduled program!_

_Don't own Borderlands._

* * *

Claptrap's former body looked the same, aside from one major change. Jack's face-mask was placed directly in front of his eye. The red light was bright under the mask, creating a creepy, almost demonic, effect.

"I gotta say, I'm probably gonna make a few changes to the design, but what can you expect from something you found in the middle of the desert?"

Claptrap was probably the most surprised out of everybody in the city.

"Guy! We're in trouble! Jack has my awesome, sexy, powerful old body! We're screwed!"

The Vault Hunters, however, did not share Claptrap's fear.

"So, are we supposed to be...afraid right now? Cause I'm not." Gaige said.

"This seems like a step down for you, Jack." Maya said.

"Not as high stakes?" Axton added.

"I SAID I was going to make some changes!" Jack said, his face mask moving as he spoke, even though there was no face behind it. "This is the part of the story where the hero realizes he was approaching his problem the wrong way. He takes risks he scoffed at before. I was smart enough to plan ahead. Remember that whole Robolution thing a few years back?"

"...What the hell's a Robolution?" Gaige asked

"A Claptrap unit was hacked by a Hyperion program a few years back to kill us." Lilith replied.

"Ok." A pause. "...Also, where the HELL are you guys?!"

"I honestly have no idea what Mordecai is. I'm looking for some Eridium."

"Lil..." Maya said.

"Look, kid, if one of us has to kill themselves using this crap, might as well be me. I already got a head start before you got here, anyway."

"You kids done?" Jack interrupted. "Cause I was just getting to the good part. So that whole thing involved a program that could hack other programs, as well as living flesh. This is tech that Hyperion had. You might be asking yourself, "Why didn't they just use that?" Two reasons. One was that I thought it would be a good idea to have a backup plan. The other was that I didn't realize how powerful this program actually was."

"So you're using the ability to wipe us out and find the Vaults?" Axton asked.

"Patchy, Patchy, Patchy. The thing you don't get about my new form is that robots don't feel emotions. Most of my mistakes from the past were due to my emotions. I could have killed you guys pretty quickly if I didn't follow my pride. Emotions suck. Clyde here can vouch for me, can ya, pal?" Jack motioned to Claptrap, who, despite being suspended in midair, had dozed off. "Wake up, dumbass!" Jack shouted.

"Huh?" Claptrap mumbled.

"This is your origin story!" Jack sighed. "You know what? I'll skip ahead. We put that program on Pandora if anything went wrong, then discontinued the Claptrap line so people would forget about it. The only Claptrap we didn't disable was the one that started the revolution and had the program somewhere in his programing."

"Huh." Claptrap said. "I'm pretty sure I would remember starting a revolution. I did start a mutiny, once."

"That's cause your Vault Hunter friends wiped your mind. Not important. Thing about emotions is I cared about stuff."

"You did a good job fooling us." Gaige snarked.

"Shut up or I will kill you before you know why!" Jack shouted. "See, I cared about humanity. Now though..." Jack began to laugh a little "Now I'm a little more..._ambitious. _Let's see what's going on off-world"

"The communication lines are coming back on!" A raider from the communications tower reported.

The audio cut to the sound of explosions. Screams and gunfire could also be heard.

"This is Commander Sarah Rhodes of the VCE! We have multiple fatalities on Themis! We are receiving reports that it is not just Hyperion tech attacking. Dahl, Torgue, God-damn Tediore! Anything that has an AI has turned! There seems to be an increase in activity on the border-worlds Pandora, what is going on there?! Damn it, Axton, answer-"

Jack cut the connection.

"Oh, she sounds pissed. Good thing you two aren't still married!" He sneered.

"Dammit, Jack! What have you done?!" Axton shouted.

"Oh, simple. I figured that, since we robots are so much better then humans, we should just get rid of all of you! This isn't a robolution." Jack leaned into, a smug, somewhat crazed look plain on his face. "It's a robopocalypse!"

This lead to a stunned silence from the Vault Hunters. As usual, when nobody had anything to say, Claptrap decided to butt in.

"Ha! Nice try, Jack!" Claptrap shouted at the robot. "But you're forgetting one thing: You couldn't possible get access to my programing without MY permiss-"

"_So what do you want my body for?" _Claptrap's voice emitted from the speaker.

"_We are going to extract a program from you and-" _A robotic voice said_._

_"__You know what? I don't care. If I were human,-and let's thank robo-God I'm not, my robotic brother- I would have probably killed myself anyway!" _Claptrap said in a very positive tone.

_"__Very well. Commencing upload. Death to humans."_

_"__As always!"_

All the color faded from Claptrap's face. "O-O-Oh...That sure sounds like me..."

"See! This is what I live for!" Jack replied with an excited tone. "I'm just scanning around the city at the faces of these bandits, and you want to know the sad thing, kid?" He addressed Claptrap. "They don't even look surprised. So is it Ok with Patches if I kill you?" He addressed Axton.

The Commando's face fell into the vacant look that he had when killing Krieg. "Let's blow up some bots." He told the other Vault Hunters, who prepped their weapons.

"The funny thing is, you could do so much! But you have no idea what that is, so you're just gonna die, power and all!"

"What?" Claptrap asked, although he was pretty sure he knew what he was talking about.

"Fair enough!" Jack said. "The fact that they gave up on you so quickly can only be matched by the crushed look on your face! Now, this get's better. I'm gonna do you a favor: I'm gonna kill you, and show them what you are, from your own words, so that they know what they're losing. That way, they might regret your death. Robot! Fry the dumbass! Play the rest of the tape!"

Electricity began to course through Claptrap violently as he screamed. The Trappington tape began to play as this happened

_And what is my plan? Glad you asked! _

_I plan on leaving behind this godforsaken weak human body for something better! _

The Vault Hunter began to fire on the robots that were aiming at the streets. The robots began to return fire.

_This Vault is different from the others, so it's key wielder will be different._

Lilith nodded to Mordecai, who was perched on top of the Raider's HQ, and began to absorb some Eridium.

_The Vault will give me it's power, and then seal me up until someone opens a few Vaults._

Torgue pulled out a strange-looking shot gun while Marcus and Moxxi both took out pistols. Toby looked up at the ship, then climbed into a vent on the side of Marcus's shop.

_My informant said that he also has a plan revolving around the Vaults, and he needs my info to do it. He assured me that part of his plan involved getting the Vaults open, so I'm all set there._

Tannis, in her apartment, looked over at Claptrap, who's screams were beginning to die out ans he lost his life. She sighed and closed the curtains

_When I get to the Vault, I gain the power it grants the keys! I will open the Vault and become more than human!_

Claptrap stopped screaming.

_He..Hehe..HeHeHe!_

He began to glow.

_I CAN LEAVE ALL OF THIS BEHIND! _

Yellow energy traveled across the electric chains that suspended him in midair. The energy came in contact with the droids, blowing them up. This caught the attention of the Vault Hunters.

_I WILL DESTORY THE UNVERSE THAT WAS SO UNFAIR TO ME!_

"What the hell?!" Gaige said.

"I know this energy!" Maya shouted. "It's-" The expression on her face changed to one of horror. "...No. Impossible!"

_I WILL BECOME_

Claptrap landed on the ground, on his feet. The glowing dimmed to show navy tattoos covering his left arm. A ball of energy formed in his left hand.

Claptrap looked up, eyes glowing gold.

_A SIREN._

* * *

_Yeah, I went there._

_You probably have a lot of questions. However, I cannot answer all of them yet without showing my hand for future plot points. _

_The reason I made Claptrap a Siren is because that's a common Borderlands Fan fiction troupe, which ironically justifies my unique one of making Claptrap human._

_I hope you're ready for a fight scene cause next Chapter is going to be a fight scene._

_If the recent turn of event have brought up any kind of emotion in you, be it anger or surprise, leave a review! They are appreciated!_


	17. The Fall

_Well, here we are. The climax of the first half of this story._

_This story's gotten around 4500 views, which I think is pretty cool, so thanks for giving it a chance._

_After I'm done with this half, I'm gonna work on a Doctor Who/ Batman crossover that will be considerably shorter than this, but will need my full attention._

_Anyway, we still have two more chapters after this, so we can wait till then to get all emotional._

_This chapter is a tad longer has a lot of action, which I might not be great at writing. Lets see what happens._

* * *

Zero was obviously considered the sneakiest of the Vault Hunters.

Salvador, however, could have give him a run for his money.

All of them had their different experiences to guide them through unfamiliar territory, but the Gunzurker grew up on Pandora. Before he discovered the power of juicing and became the ripped dwarf he grew up to be, he was just a scrawny kid. He learned that the only way to really stay alive was to stay out of sight.

As an adult, he preferred to run directly into the danger, two guns blazing. However, if the situation called for it, he could touch upon his roots and sneak around. The only real thing that changed from when he was a kid was that he was wider, but he could work with it.

Using his stealth skills, he had managed to sneak onto the ship Jack was on, the ship Krieg was held up in beforehand. He had his own way's of sneaking onto a ship that was midair at the time.

The interior of the ship was surprisingly unguarded. He didn't really run into any trouble. Part of him was concerned that it was pretty suspicious. However, he could hear Jack's speech from inside the ship, and that was enough to distract his common sense.

The ship didn't have any windows, so he couldn't see what was happening. However, he heard the sound of Claptrap dying, followed by an eery silence.

The Gunzurker focused on the path in front of him. He had gotten this far without anybody seeing him. If he could just make it to the cockpit, he could put an end to this before it began.

* * *

The battle of Sanctuary raged on around them, but everything seemed to slowdown to those who saw Claptrap's recovery.

"...Axton?" Gaige whispered "What do we do?"

"Wait it out." Axton said in a hushed whisper. "See what he does next."

Claptrap looked around with golden, glowing eyes. He had a strangely vacant expression on his face. Any burns Claptrap had gained from the electric shock began to fade away.

"Huh. Didn't expect that." Jack said. "Alright. Slight change of plans: Keep killing him until he stays dead!" Jack shouted at the other robots. A squad of flying robots surrounded Claptrap, guns charging.

Claptrap's expression suddenly changed to one of pure rage. He screamed as he jumped up to the floating robots. They began to fire onto the siren, but he wasn't phased by it. He grappled one of the robots and tore it's arms off. He kicked the robot into another robot, then turned to the other robots. Using the cannon-arm he tore off of the robot, he fired upon them, sending out explosive, fiery blasts.

"Claptrap's doing his own thing! He's not hurting us!" Axton shouted. "Focus fire on the robots!"

Axton fired at some of the surrounding robots. He tossed his turret into a crowded area, causing a large explosion to erupt from the center of the crowd. The robots who were not effect by the blast had to deal with the gunfire from the turret

"Yeah! It's a grenade that shoot's back!"

"Didn't take long for him to get into it." Maya said to Gaige, before focusing fire on the flying drones.

* * *

Throughout the entire city, different citizens were fighting off the robots in their own ways.

Let's take a peek into some of their methods.

* * *

Four robots broke down the door to Scooter's garage. The mechanic glanced up from the magazine he was reading.

"Well, crap." He said. "Always knew Hyperion would send bots to git me. Well, might as well just give myself -" He sprinted over to the Catch-a-Ride system in his garage "CATCH-A-RIDE INITIATE CODE BADASS!" He screamed. "PASSWORD: POWER ARMOR, BITCHES!"

Scotter stood in the middle of the digistruct pad as pixels began to form around him. When it was finished, the light vanished to show Scooter wearing a crude form of rusty power armor.

"Now, I never got the chance to test this out, so yous can consider this a field test. Kinda cramped, though." Scooter said. "...Actually, I just realized you can't hear me from under my armor. Probably should work on that. DIE BOTS!"

The jets on Scooter's power armor pushed him toward the robots as an incredible speed. He tackled one robot before punching another one. The other two robots backed up to get a better shot, but Scooter shot a rocket at them from his palm.

Scooter dusted off his hands as he headed toward the exit of his garage. "Done and done! Time to show this bad boy off to the-" An alarm suddenly emitted from his armor.

"_**WARNING! BATTERY AT CRITICAL!"**_

"Crap. Forgot 'bout the power source issues." Scooter sighed as he walked back over to the Catch-A-Ride. "Well, guess I'll just hide like the rest of em. One day, power armor, we're gonna rule."

* * *

When a woman discovers a guy she cares about might have just sold out all their allies, she would likely begin to experience a lot of complicated emotions.

However, Tannis was not a woman of emotion.

She was a women of science.

And, according to science, she had multiple DNA samples of the first male Siren, whom she also slept with.

Robot invasion be damned, she had science to do.

Tannis was just about to charge a sample of Claptrap's DNA with Eridium when a loader blew her door from its hinges.

Not distracted by the invasion, Tannis simply flicked a switch under her desk. Two panels extended out of the walls near the door, crushing the robot between them.

"At least you'll be less messy to clean up." Tannis said to herself.

* * *

If Zed were not dead, he would probably unleash some gene-spliced hell-spawn upon the robotic masses.

Unfortunately, Zed was dead.

* * *

"You know, I'm surprised you up here, sniping." Mordecai said.

"Indeed. I am not as young and vigorous as I used to be." Hammerlock said to the hunter. "Also, I am missing a few limbs."

"That never stopped Gaige."

"I agree, but I'm afraid I lack the giant death robot she possesses."

"Yeah, well I hope your eyesight doesn't give out on you, old man." Mordecai said, as he focused a shot. He was about to fire when he heard a gunshot. The bot he was targeting blew up. He looked at Hammerlock, who was lazily holding his gun out of the window, reading a book.

The cyborg looked up. "Ah, were you saying something?" Hammerlock said. "I was just enjoying this intriguing novel about a British butler and his never-ending search for dignity."

Mordy looked at the scholar with a bewildered look on his face. He then sighed and took a mouthful of skag ale before shooting at more robots.

* * *

Marcus rose from behind the shot at the robots that were crowding Moxxi's. He managed to blow a couple up before crouching back under cover.

"You reloaded yet, Moxxi?" he asked the bar owner.

"Yeah. Rubi's not cut out for this kind of use, though." the bartender replied. "No wounder the Vault Hunters returned it."

"Reminds me of our honeymoon, actually" Marcus remarked

Moxxi laughed. "That should have been a sign, really." She shot a few blind shots over the counter. "You're doing pretty good out there, old man."

"So are you. I though you said you were too old to do this kind of stuff."

"Yeah, but if someone's causing trouble in my place, I can't just stand by and let them." She brought her gun into cover. "Damn, I'm out!"

"Where's Torgue?" Marcus shouted at a blast his the counter

"He wanted to make sure Tina was OK!" Moxxi replied. "We just gotta hold out until he gets back. What about Toby?"

"Eh, kid grew up on Pandora. He can handle himself."

* * *

Tina was held up in Marcus's shop before the attack due to a temper tantrum about dead father figures. This was surprising wise of the girl.

So far, only a few bots had managed to get into the armory. They were blown up rather quickly by the young demo expert, who had access to hundreds of objects that blew up.

However, one robot managed to find a way around the store, entering the back room through a hole created in the back of the store. It managed to sneak up behind the girl and poised its gun at her head, ready to shoot.

Tina heard a gunshot. She turned around and saw the loader.

The robot fell to the ground, revealing Toby, who was holding a Jacobs rifle with a smoking barrel.

"It it took more than one shot, you weren't using a Jacobs." the young boy said, with a small smirk on his face.

Tina looked at Toby, then smiled. She grabbed a Torgue rifle from the ground. "Yeah, but if didn't go BOOM, you ain't using a Torgue!"

Suddenly there was an explosion outside the shop. A couple of loader attempted to enter the shop, but were blown up before they could. As if summoned by his adopted daughter, Mister Torgue walked through the dust holding a strange-looking shotgun.

"EXPLODING ****ING SWORD GUN, MOTHER****ERS! YEEEEEAH!"

"Papa Torgue!" "Mr. Flexington!" the two children exclaimed to the bad-ass adult.

"COME ON, KID!" Torgue said. "TIME TO GO TO THE BAR!"

* * *

Lilith was getting back into her grove, fighting off robots. If there was one thing she missed about being an outlaw, it was being able to kill stuff whenever she liked. Sure, she would prefer Sanctuary not getting attacked, but it had far too long since she had the chance to destroy stuff.

She was in the middle of melting a robot with her mind when the wall exploded next to her. Lilith looked over at the pile of rubble. It moved slightly before exploding.

Lilith coughed, waving away the dust in front of her. Through the dust, she could see a masculine figure with glowing tattoos and eyes. She correctly guessed that it was Claptrap.

He looked around the room with a blank expression before locking eyes with Lilith.

"Sup." Lilith said. "It's funny: You don't seem pretty enough to be a-"

The expression on Claptrap's face transformed to one of pure rage. He grabbed Lilith by the neck and raised her from the ground.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"

Claptrap snarled at the other siren in response, tightening his grip.

There was suddenly and explosion that rattled the entire flying city. Jack's voice could be heard throughout the entire city after the explosion died down.

"Screw it! I'm cutting out the middle man! Blow up Sanctuary's engines! I'm going to the moon base! Don't try to shoot me down. I'm already in orbit! I don't have lungs, bitches!"

Jack's voice died out, only to be replaced by Mordecai, over Lilith ECHO.

_~hiss~_

**Mordecai: **_Lil, the giant ship is shooting at the engines! We gotta put it down!_

**Scooter: **_Naw, too late! We going down at this rate!_

**Salvador: **_I'm in the ship, amigos! I'll see if there is anything I can do!_

**Gaige: **_But what if there isn't?_

**Salvador:**_Then shoot me down!_

**Maya:**_Are you kidding?! Nobody's gonna do that, knowing you're in there! Just escape!_

**Salvador:**_I can't! Jack knew what I was doing? He locked me in the cockpit!_

The conversation continued like this, with Salvador insisting they shoot him down if needed and other's saying not to. Claptrap's eyes narrowed as he dropped Lilith.

"**I'll deal with you later, Meat bag."** He said in a dark tone. He then turned and jumped out the hole he came in.

Lilith looked at the direction he went. "What the...? Meat bag?" Her eyes suddenly widened.

"Crap."

* * *

Axton hid behind some rubble that came from a destroyed building. He looked around at the city. Most of it was already destroyed at that point. He wasn't sure if the citizens were alright, which worried him. He wasn't sure the city would come back from this.

There was also the fact that the city was going to crash into the mountains below.

Axton turned on his ECHO.

_~hiss~_

**Axton:**_What's the situation?_

**Gaige: **_Sal's trying to get himself killed!_

**Salvador: **_We're running out of options! Shoot down the ship! I can only control it if the autopilot is turned off, and that will only happen if the ship is in critical!_

**Maya: **_But you'll die!_

**Salvador:**_If I don't, everybody dies, chica!_

**Lilith:**_Watch out for Claptrap! Don't trust him! He's going for the ship!_

Axton looked up at the ship, startled by Lilith's statement. He saw a bright yellow light, presumably Claptrap, jumping between different flying robots, toward the ship.

In a blinding flash, Claptrap was suddenly on the other side of the ship. A second later, the rear of the ship exploded.

"Holy shit!"

**Salvador: **_I'm gonna bring this thing in! Hold on!_

**Gaige:**_NO!_

The ship turned toward Sanctuary It proceeded to crash into the base of the city, pushing the city. It tilted slightly upon the impact. The tremors were felt throughout the entire city. Screams emitted from all over the city. The ship was carrying Sanctuary on it's back.

**Axton: **_Sal, what happens to you when this thing lands?! Sal? SAL?!_

Sanctuary slowly began to crash toward the Dust. It was nearing the ground when Salvador sent out one last ECHO.

**Salvador:**_Adios, mi amigos._

An explosion emitted as the ship and city crashed in to the desert.

And a second Vault Hunter fell.

* * *

_Contrary to popular belief, I actually do like the second generation of Vault Hunters, despite the fact that I wrote one out of the first half of my story and killed off two others. I'll make it up to Zero, though._

_Alright, I can do this. I start school next week, so updates are probably going to become more infrequent._

_Reviews are appreciated!_

_P.S. Scotter's power armor is called "The Rusty Hick." I haven't jumped the shark. I started this story with Claptrap becoming a human, none of this is out of character. And Hammerlock is reading a book I'm reading for school. Can you guess the title?_


	18. Exile

_Alright, guys, this is it. One more chapter after this and I'm going on a Wayward break._

_I'll tell you about the story next chapter, in the end notes. _

_Don't Own Borderlands_

* * *

The dust cleared on Sanctuary. Axton looked around at what remained after the battle and crash.

The city was in ruins. Buildings were destroyed Fires were burning throughout the city. Screams could still be heard by different citizens who didn't know what happened. Different parts of the inner workings of the flying city stuck out of the ground, having been crushed into the top of the old mining ship. That would describe the scene the best: The city was no longer a city, but a crashed version of the mining ship it once was.

As some of the remaining citizens of Sanctuary gathered in the remains of the town center, Axton realized that Sanctuary had landed completely on top of the ship Salvador was in. He immediately went to his ECHO.

"Sal!" He shouted. "Salvador! Do you copy, Gunzurker?!"

"Axton. He's gone." Maya said to the commando, putting a hand on his shoulder She then looked up to the crowd. "How many casualties?"

"Other than Zed and Sal, we don't know yet." Lilith replied. "So what's our next corse of action?"

Axton surveyed the crowd. He saw a lot of scared and confused faces. He wasn't sure what to say. That Jack was back? That they were at war? That this might go beyond just Pandora, but the entire galaxy?

He was prepared to open his mouth and just say the first thing on his mind when someone spoke up from behind him.

"Man! I had a crazy dream!"

All eyes turned to Claptrap, who rubbed his head and yawned, smiling sheepishly. "Did you guys redecorate while I was asleep?"

Everybody stared at Claptrap, tension filling the air. Claptrap looked around the crowd. "What are you all staring at?" He looked down at his arm, which was still covered in navy markings, although they were not glowing like they were before. "Oh, these? They's just...uh...Tattoos! Yeah! I got them a while ago! Surprised you guys didn't see them earlier!" Claptrap exclaimed, before laughing nervously "So...Lovely day we're having?" Claptrap added, feeling the glares burrow into him.

The silence went on for a few more seconds before being broken.

A glowing red figure ran out of the crowd. Lilith punched Claptrap in the face before shoving him against a wall.

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" She shouted at him. "I'LL KILL YOU!"

"Lilith! Wait!" Axton said to the siren as he dashed over to the scene.

"Why should I wait?!" She yelled over at the commando. "He's been lying to us this entire time!"

"What do you mean?" The commando asked.

Lilith glared at Claptrap with glowing eyes. "Around seven years ago, Hyperion put a program inside of a Claptrap unit. The program was made to control other robots and try to kill us."

"I know that. Jack talked about that." Axton said.

"Well, turns out that AI never got erased." The siren continued. "So now he's a human - No – a _siren_, and now he's just gonna use his siren powers to kill us all!" She finished, slamming the former robot against the wall.

"Lil!" Axton said. "Just let him talk on his behalf!"

"Why should I?!" She shouted back. "Remember the last time we trusted an AI?"

"Yes. And that AI was Angel, and you remember when we chose not to listen to her." Axton stared down the siren, who held her ground. "It's what Roland would do."

Lilith glared at the commando, then sighed, releasing Claptrap from her grip. "You better talk." Lilith growled to Claptrap.

"I will! I will!" Claptrap stuttered as he struggled to get himself up. He turned over to the commando. "Ok! Ok! I was lying about not remembering anything! I remember the Clyde Trappington thing. That I'm him and stuff." He ranted to the commando, sweating and stuttering as he tried to find words. "But I'm not him! Yeah! I'm a different man! I'm didn't do any of his asshole stuff!"

"I understand that, but-" Axton tried to say, but was cut off by Claptrap's continued rant.

"No need to push me any more! I'll talk! So I guess I might actually have another mind in my head, but he has no control! Normally. He usually just mutters bad things in my head about meatbags and stuff when things are quite, but I would never listen to him! Completely different people! Minds. Whatever. I didn't do anything!"

"Claptrap, I only have-"

"Right. Look, I might have known about the whole 'I spaz out with power when I die' thing since I woke up as a human. I thought it would cause bad attention, and I might figured it was my body and I could be private and stuff! But if I know I was a siren, I would have told you right away! Honest!" Claptrap ranted. "And-"

"CLAPTRAP." Axton said sternly, shutting the nervous man up. "I understand all of that. I don't blame you for any of that."

"What?!" Lilith shouted "But he-"

"Lil." Maya said. "Let him finish."

"I only have one question, and you have to be honest, or else I'll let Lilith have another go at you." Axton told Claptrap.

"Yeah! Sure! Anything!" Claptrap said with enthusiasm.

"Did you or did you not allow Jack to have control over your body?"

Claptrap's face fell. Silence filled the area. He looked away from the commando's gaze. Axton sighed, then looked at the former robot, now siren, again

"I...I..." Claptrap stuttered. "Look...Maybe..."

"Leave."

"What?" Claptrap whispered, in a terrified tone.

"What?!" Lilith shouted at Axton. "We should kill him! We've killed people for less!"

"Yeah, we have," Axton said, as Claptrap stood there, shocked. "but look how trying to kill him turned out for Jack. We just entered a war and we don't have the resources to kill him for good. We'll put ransom on him later if we have the funds."

Claptrap stood there, staring at the ground, before looking up.

Then he smiled his usual goofy smile.

"Come on, guys!" he said to the crowd. "It's me, Claptrap!" He scanned the crowd for a friendly face.

As expected, he couldn't find one. So he looked specificity for the people he considered good friends. Everybody was absolutely against him. Tina, Toby, Gaige, Scooter. He knew Axton was against him. Salvador was nice to him, but now he was dead.

He quickly remembered what he did the night before, and realized that there was one person he knew cared about him. He immediately found Tannis, and locked eyes with her.

He regretted this as soon as he did it.

The look in her eyes hurt more than any of the others combined. Not because it was different from any of the others, but because it was the same as theirs. She had more emotions though. She was hurt. Disappointed. Angry.

Claptrap's face fell. He glanced at the crowd one last time.

"I'm...I'm sorry?" He tried, although he knew it wouldn't work.

He grabbed a discarded gun and turned toward the desert. He walked off of the city, or at least the rubble of the city. He looked back at his former home one last time, hoping to see regret of some sort. But they seem to have already gone about their business.

Claptrap sighed. He could only think of one place to go.

Good thing he still had some cash for fast traveling.

* * *

_Yeah, this chapter might not have been that funny. As I said ages ago in another chapter, the first half of this story is mainly there to set up the second half._

_If you can guess the basic premise of the second half of the story you get an imaginary cookie :D You'll probably have a better idea about it by the end of the next chapter. You will definitely know what's going on during the intermission bits._

_I'll hopefully have the next chapter up some time next week, but I am starting school, so no promises._

_Please leave a review on your way out! They are cool!_


	19. The Fighter and the Fool

_Hopefully this chapter will hold you guys together for a while._

_I don't own Borderlands_

* * *

A few days had passes since the fall of Sanctuary. The survivors of the crash were transported to Overlook, the only other safe area Axton could think of that had a stable defense. He was worried the Zafords might have a problem with Scooter moving in, since he killed Lucky.

As luck would have it, Jack had already tried attacking Overlook. Their shield protected them, but the Holy Spirits, which was located outside of the shield protection area, was destroyed, killing off any Zafords that might have issue with Scooter. Moxxi was actually talking about rebuilding the bar for herself.

Axton knew, however, that they were not the only one's having problems, so he decided to get in contact with the VCE to get a read on how things were going off planet.

He was surprised how quickly the call was picked up. He was equally surprised to see Sarah, hair pulled into a pony tail, wearing an Dhal tang top and pants, as opposed to her usual military gear or power armor.

They stared at each other for a few seconds before Axton broke the silence.

"You know why I'm calling." he said

"This is my personal line. Not my official one."

"Do you want to make this a sexy call?"

Sarah crossed her arms. "No."

"Then grab a pen and paper and write down the important bits." Axton's face grew serious. "Sanctuary fell."

"How many casualties?"

"As far as we could tell? Around 15."

"Anyone notable?" She paused.

"_Notable?_" Axton asked in disbelief

"Forgive me if that sounds cold. These are war times. People become more valuable depending on their skills."

"We got our number by comparing dead bodies to alive ones. Some people weren't even recognizable. They could have been anybody. But they were all people." He said harshly to Sarah.

Sarah uncrossed her arms and looked at her ex-husband with a surprisingly soft gaze. "Axton. Who died?"

Axton averted Sarah's gaze. "Zed...And Salvador."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

Sarah nodded and slowly picked up her pen and a piece of paper.

"Tell me everything."

* * *

Claptrap finally found a safe place to rest. However, once he stopped to rest, he realized how unsafe it really was.

He managed to argue a few of the faults in his mind. Sure, he was back in the Southern Self, and he had nothing to cloth himself from the cold nights. However, he was pretty sure he had some sore of self heating power in his Siren abilities. Lilith and Maya could get away with wearing so little in such harsh climates, so it stood to logic he could.

Food was also considered optional. He could last on a little energy provided by food. Even when he hadn't eaten in a while, he still didn't feel famished or weak. He decided it had to do with Siren powers.

He managed to justify all these things with the fact he wasn't quite human. At the end of the day, however, this place was still titled "Claptrap's Place" on the fast travel system.

It would probably be the first place they would look for him when they started to.

He was pretty emotionally distraught when he made the decision, so of course it might not have been the best.

Claptrap sighed as he leaned on a broken Claptrap unit. He had been human for about three weeks now, and still never go a hold on emotions. It was like having to become a master chef instantaneously, only you had no choice in the ingredients, and people always wanted different things, and it would become much more stressful after having sex with...

...The metaphor fell apart a little

It seemed like everything came back to Tannis for him. Claptrap realized he cared about what she thought more than what the others thought. That was why, when he saw her in that crowd, he felt something ache deep inside of him. Disappointing her was, as far as Claptrap could tell, one of the worst things he did.

Only it wasn't. He was banished because he sold out Sanctuary In his defense, it seemed like a good idea back when he was a robot. He knew they wouldn't get that, though. They were never robots.

Claptrap didn't even want to think about the Clyde Trappington stuff. The fact that he was human before. Even worse, Claptrap realized, he had a son in the tapes.

A _son._

From what he could tell, though, he was a pretty shitty father.

This sent up a strange well of emotions in Claptrap. He didn't even know what to think.

"This blows! How the hell do they expect me to get emotions if I've only had emotions for three weeks? I've been alive longer without emotions! How am I supposed to have something to work off of?"

"_Well, you do have your memories."_

Claptrap yelped, causing himself to fall into the snow. "Wha! Who said that?" He cried, looking around.

"_Over here, I guess_" He looked up at the wall. The voice was coming from a broken green Claptrap unit.

"How? What?" Claptrap attempted to ask, before settling on "Are you alive?"

"_Well, that would really all depend on your definition of 'alive.'"_ The broken robot responded. It paused. "_You're projecting the voice onto this robot, is what I'm trying to say."_

"So that means..."

_"__Yeah, I'm a voice inside your head. Basically..Basically you."_

Claptrap eyed the robot suspiciously "I don't know if I should trust you. I haven't had the best reputation with voices in my head."

"_Yeah. I know that guy was bad, but you can trust me."_

"Why would I trust a voice in my head about trusting voices in my head?"

"_Uhh...That's actually a pretty good question..."_

"**The moron has a pretty good point there."**

Claptrap yelped in surprise again. He looked around the cave again, startled. "Who was THAT?!" He shouted.

"_You know you don't really have to shout. We're both voices in your head."_

**"****Yeah, dumbass."**

Claptrap looked over at a broken black and red Claptrap unit, and narrowed his eyes at it.

"Wait...I know you..." He muttered to himself. His eyes suddenly widened. "Crap! You're the evil one! That one that wants to kill humans! And stuff!"

"**Yup. Just call me INA. And, as always I suggest going back to wherever the meat-bags are festering now and kill them for good."**

"Why the hell should I listen to you?"

"_You shouldn't! That's the point! You should listen to me!"_

_"_**Well, well, well. Somebody's got a high opinion of himself for a disembodied voice. What's the difference between you and me?"**

_"__Well, for starters, I'm not telling him to kill people!"_

"How about this?" Claptrap interjected. "We've already heard your idea," He pointed at the to the Claptrap unit INA was represented by. "so how about we listen to the other guy?" He paused for a second. "What should we call you, anyway?"

_"__I'd call it a slippery slope, naming the voices you hear in your head." _The other voice replied.

**"****Do you really think you can trust that guy?"**

_"__Do you really think you can trust THAT guy?! He want's to kill all your friends!"_

"**They were never his friends."**

_"__Some of them were. Like Tannis. Listen to me for her."_

"...Alright." Claptrap said. "Let's hear your plan."

**"****Nice guilt trip." **INA said sarcasticly.

_"__Shut up." _The other voice replied. "_Alright. So, like I was saying, you have memories from before you had emotions. So, why not reflect on these memories with your new emotions? That way, you will have a better grasp on you relationships and friends and stuff."_

_"_Huh. I like that idea. At least, I like it better than killing everybody."

**"****Indeed. As do I. Although, I would still prefer to kill everybody, but this is a nice compromise."**

_"__Wait. Why do YOU agree?"_

**"****Well, you clearly just pulled that out of your ass. You have no idea how he'll react to his memories. This could end with him agreeing with me. At the very least, I can savor how the failure will break you."**

An awkward silence filled the cave. Technically, since Claptrap was the only person who could hear the voices in his head, the cave was always silent, aside from the few things Claptrap said.

Claptrap looked between the two broken units. "So, how long have you two been in my head? There seems to be a bit of a history here."

"_You don't need to know about it now."_

**"****Oh, you aren't gonna tell him about-"**

_"__I SAID he doesn't need to know about it now."_

INA paused, then chuckled lightly. "**Very well. Let him trust you a little less. Lets give him some space. He has some reminiscing to do."**

_"__Alright. Good luck, Claptrap."_

_"_Wait!" Claptrap said to the other voice. "What does Mr. Crazy have control over my siren powers?"

"_From what I understand, it might have something to do with the fact you weren't born a siren." _The voice suddenly paused. "_I have to go now."_

"Wait!" Claptrap said, but he could already feel the voice leave. "If I didn't know that, how could he...?" Claptrap shrugged. "You know what? Screw it. I'm just gonna sit here and remember stuff."

Claptrap walked over to the oil stained bed he used to...didn't really matter what he used to do on it. He sat down, closed his eyes, and drifted back to the first thin he could remember.

* * *

Axton told Sarah everything that had happened over the last few weeks. About Jack. About what he knew about the Robolution years ago. About Claptrap. Sarah listened, taking notes at certain points.

Axton finished his story. He paused after telling Sarah about how they arrived in Overlook.

"So," Sarah said. "what you're saying is that you let a dangerous person just leave?"

"From what I told you, do you really think we were in any condition to put Claptrap down?" Axton told his ex-wife. "I'm gonna put a bounty on him, so if any bounty hunters feel like it, they can attempt to hunt him down."

"Do you want this to be galaxy wide, or just Pandora?"

"Just Pandora. If he wants to leave, he can try."

"Ah." Sarah paused. "Did our...mutual friend arrive back safely?"

She was talking about Zero, who had arrived at Overlook earlier that day. The commando wasn't sure how he knew to come to Overlook, but decided not to question it.

"Yup." Axton replied. "Maya's bringing him up to speed on what's happened." He looked at Sarah with an aggravated look on his face. "Now tell me what's happening off-world."

"What do you want me to tell you?" Sarah said. "That Jack caught us by surprise? He has an army of near limitless robots. On the plus side, we know only to really use corrosive weapons, but the robots don't tire. Plus, if your notes are anything to go by, be might have to deal with reanimated corpses later." She sighed. "We almost Eden-5, but your friend is surprisingly resourceful"

"Vault Hunters tend to be." Axton replied. "Which is why we need-"

"I know." Sarah interrupted "And I already have an idea on who to get. We just need a little time to...recruit them."

"Recruit?" Axton asked. "From what I could tell, we were all..." Axton eyes suddenly widened.

Sarah nodded. She put her pen and paper down. "None of our superiors recognized the problem Jack was going to be in the future. They said that it was simply Pandora issues, and they didn't see that as official Really, they didn't believe in the Vaults. They just thought Jack was his own brand of crazy. They were kinda right about that. I decided we needed to put a team on Pandora.

"So you've done this before?" Axton asked, still surprised.

"All I really did was make sure some people made it on Pandora. I had to get information about the Vault to our friend. I mad sure Maya got intel on Lilith. Gaige was important, given how much media attention she was getting after her...incident. And-"

"And you heavily recommended that I flee to Pandora." Axton finished, finally understanding fully what she was saying.

"To be honest, you had tons of war crimes you should have been put to death for, but the timing of your last one was perfect."

"Why did you chose all of us, though?"

"I studied the psychology of a great Vault Hunter. Lack of concern of human life. Slightly psychotic Skilled warriors. Inner drive to do good. I didn't even plan for Salvador and Krieg, but they fit the mold." She paused. "Sorry for your losses."

Axton brushed it off. "And you managed to get Jack to think he made the choice?"

"All Jack was doing was putting potentially competent Vault Hunters onto that train to die. All I needed to do was find competent people."

Axton was silent for a few seconds, then nodded. "So I guess you know what you're doing. Congrats. Meeting over."

Axton began to walk away, but Sarah hadn't hung up. "Axton." She said. "On a personal note? I believe you've changed for the better during your time on Pandora." Axton continued walking, before she said, "The man you are probably wouldn't have committed all of those crimes."

Axton stopped in his tracks, then turned back toward the screen. He stared at Sarah with a disbelieving look on his face. He chuckled a hollow laugh to himself, shaking his head.

"You really don't understand, do you?" He said. "Why I've changed. It' pretty simple. I just care about my team."

"Of corse you do. You've all been through a lot together."

"Yeah. I've had to watch a lot of friends break, too." he said, his expression slowly falling. "I could relate to Roland. He was a former Lance. He cared for his team. He became their leader. He died." Axton walked over to a small cooler in his room. He pulled out a beer. "This entire thing is starting to look pretty familiar."

"That doesn't mean you're going to-"

"I know that. I'm more worried about everybody else." He took a long sip. "Do you know what Gaige is doing today? Gaige, who should probably have a full ride to college or something. Gaige, who's killed far more people then she probably should have for her age?" He looked up at Sarah. "She's talking to her parents about why exactly she won't be coming home."

"Axton, if it weren't for Zero-"

"Sal at least got to choose to die, to give his life for us. Krieg..." Axton's eyes grew distant. "He thanked me. He thanked me as I drove a spinning blade right into his head!" The bottle broke in Axton's hand. He looked down at his now bleeding hand. "Sometimes I can smell his blood on me."

Sarah was silent. Axton looked up at her, as if he forgot she was still calling in.

"...I'll send reinforcement as soon as I can." She said slowly to Axton. "Drop down some towers in order to reinforce Overlook. You can expect the four to be there in about a year."

"Yeah." He looked back down at his hand.

"Axton." She said with a concerned look on her face. "...There's nothing I can say, is there?"

"Yeah"

She glanced away from the screen. "I wish there was."

"Me too." He touched the ring.

Sarah hung up, and Axton was alone.

* * *

A Hyperion drone flew through Liar's Berg. It was not sent there to kill anybody. It was just looking for any supplies left over by the Raiders.

It flew over the town, passing by the fast travel station and the faint yellow light near the station.

The drone flew back, inspecting the light. The light was buried under a thin layer of snow.

The drone thought of passing it over, but then he remembered what happened to last robot that missed something.

If he could feel fear, he would be feeling it.

The drone extended a small shovel, and began to dig.

* * *

_Will Claptrap learn anything about his past and redeem himself to the Raiders? Will Jack wipe out Pandora? Are we finally getting Zero back involved with the story. All this, and more, shall be answered! Whenever!_

_So yeah. That was pretty much all cliffhanger. Sorry about that. And now I go on a sorta hiatus in order to write another story. Don't worry about me not finishing this. If I leave it , it will eat me up inside._

_As for the other story, it is going to be a Doctor Who/Batman crossover called "The Clown Has the Phone Box." The premise is that the Joker gets his hands on the TARDIS and causes havoc. It is up to the Master and Clara to stop him. If any of that interests you, keep an eye out for it._

_I am going to be posting some intermission chapters to build up to the second half of this story. You will find out what they are as I do them._

_Thanks to everybody who has read this entire story, encouraging me through my strange idea of a story. Special thanks to those people who view different chapters at a time or something. The views per chapter is kinda weird and that will forever perplex me._

_As always, leave a review on your way out! And enjoy your burrito!_


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